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 judgment on it was kind, and that he even did something
to temper the wind of adverse criticism to the shorn lamb. Yet parts
of it were likely to incur his displeasure as a Tory, as a Churchman,
and as one who greatly prefer