Or rather a gross compound, justly tried,
  Of envy, hatred, jealousy, and pride,
  Contributes moat perhaps to enhance their fame,
  And Emulation is its precious name. 
  Boys once on fire with that contentious zeal
  Feel all the rage that female rivals feel;
  The prize of beauty in a woman’s eyes
  Not brighter than in theirs the scholar’s prize. 
  The spirit of that competition burns
  With all varieties of ill by turns,
  Each vainly magnifies his own success,
  Resents his fellow’s, wishes it were less,
  Exults in his miscarriage if he fail,
  Deems his reward too great if he prevail,
  And labours to surpass him day and night,
  Less for improvement, than to tickle spite. 
  The spur is powerful, and I grant its force;
  It pricks the genius forward in its course,
  Allows short time for play, and none for sloth,
  And felt alike by each, advances both,
  But judge where so much evil intervenes,
  The end, though plausible, not worth the means. 
  Weigh, for a moment, classical desert
  Against a heart depraved, and temper hurt,
  Hurt, too, perhaps for life, for early wrong
  Done to the nobler part, affects it long,
  And you are staunch indeed in learning’s cause,
  If you can crown a discipline that draws
  Such mischiefs after it, with much applause.

He might have done more, if he had been able to point to the alternative of a good day school, as a combination of home affections with the superior teaching hardly to be found, except in a large school, and which Cowper, in drawing his comparison between the two systems, fails to take into account.

To the same general class of poems belongs Anti-Thelypthora, which it is due to Cowper’s memory to say was not published in his lifetime.  It is an angry pasquinade on an absurd book advocating polygamy on Biblical grounds, by the Rev. Martin Madan, Cowper’s quondam spiritual counsellor.  Alone among Cowper’s works it has a taint of coarseness.

The Moral Satires pleased Franklin, to whom their social philosophy was congenial, as at a later day, in common with all Cowper’s works, they pleased Cobden, who no doubt specially relished the passage in Charity, embodying the philanthropic sentiment of Free Trade.  There was a trembling consultation as to the expediency of bringing the volume under the notice of Johnson.  “One of his pointed sarcasms, if he should happen to be displeased, would soon find its way into all companies and spoil the sale.”  “I think it would be well to send in our joint names, accompanied with a handsome card, such an one as you will know how to fabricate, and such as may predispose him to a favourable perusal of the book, by coaxing him into a good temper, for he is a great bear, with all his learning and penetration.”  Fear prevailed; but it seems that the book found its way into the dictator’s hands, that his