te,
Had not the fleet gone out too late;
And in their very ports besiege them,
But that he would not disoblige them;
And make the rascals pay him dearly
For those affronts they give him yearly.
'Tis not denied, that, when we write,
Our ink is black, our paper white:
And, when we scrawl our paper o'er,
We blacken what was white before:
I think this practice only fit
For dealers in satiric wit.
But you some white-lead ink must get
And write on paper black as jet;
Your interest lies to learn the knack
Of whitening what before was black.
Thus your encomium, to be strong,
Must be applied directly wrong.
A tyrant for his mercy praise,
And crown a royal dunce with bays:
A squinting monkey load with charms,
And paint a coward fierce in arms.
Is he to avarice inclined?
Extol him for his generous mind:
And, when we starve for want of corn,
Come out with Amalthea's horn:[3]
For all experience this evinces
The only art of pleasing princes:
For princes' love you should descant
On virtues which they know they want.
One compliment I had forgot,
But songsters must omit it not;
I freely grant the thought is old:
Why, then, your hero must be told,
In him such virtues lie inherent,
To qualify him God's vicegerent;
That with no title to inherit,
He must have been a king by merit.
Yet, be the fancy old or new,
Tis partly false, and partly true:
And, take it right, it means no more
Than George and William claim'd before.
Should some obscure inferior fellow,
Like Julius, or the youth of Pella,[4]
When all your list of Gods is out,
Presume to show his mortal snout,
And as a Deity intrude,
Because he had the world subdued;
O, let him not debase your thoughts,
Or name him but to tell his faults.--
Of Gods I only quote the best,
But you may hook in all the rest.
Now, birth-day bard, with joy proceed
To praise your empress and her breed;
First of the first, to vouch your lies,
Bring all the females of the skies;
The Graces, and their mistress, Venus,
Must venture down to entertain us:
With bended knees when they adore her,
What dowdies they appear before her!
Nor shall we think you talk at random,
For Venus might be her great-grandam:
Six thousand years has lived the Goddess,
Your heroine hardly fifty odd is;
Besides, your songsters oft have shown
That she has Graces of her own:
Three Graces by Lucina brought her,
Just three, and every Grace a daughter;
Here many a king his heart and crown
Shall at their s