The king, observing with judicious eyes
The state of both his universities,
To Oxford sent a troop of horse, and why?
That learned body wanted loyalty;
To Cambridge books, as very well discerning
How much that loyal body wanted learning.

Context: "Lines written on George I's donation of the Bishop of Ely's Library to the University of Cambridge" (in 1715), as reported in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, ed. Elizabeth M. Knowles (1999), p. 781 | Compare | The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For Tories own no argument but force; With equal skill to Cambridge books he sent, For Whigs admit no force but argument. | William Browne's impromptu reply, standing up "for the honor of Cambridge, of which he was a graduate", according to Henry Philip Dodd's The Epigrammatists (1870), p. 310; also quoted in Nichols's Anecdotes (1782), p. 462. | Samuel Johnson's opinion of this answer is given in Hester Thrale's Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 40: "Mr. Johnson did him the justice to say, it was one of the happiest extemporaneous productions he ever met with; though he once comically confessed, that he hated to repeat the wit of a Whig urged in support of Whiggism."