Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/184

 discover any prize essay that was worth printing. The Principia of Newton and the Essay on the Principles of Population of Malthus were not prize essays.

There is some evidence on the subject of the effect of prizes in the Calendars of the English Universities. In the case of the Seatonian Prize, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the Master of Clare, and the Greek Professor are the judges, and have made the award now for more than a hundred years. The poems which obtained the prize were printed at the time; and these poems have been published in two volumes; but it does not appear as yet that the effect has been very great in the way of the immortality that poets are supposed to desire. Indeed the successful prizemen may be considered as somewhat similarly situated with the writer who, according to Byron, "cultivated much private renown in the shape of Latin verses." It is not to be supposed that the judges selected by the Cobden Club to adjudicate the prize for the best Essay on the future of Free Trade, have more chance of discovering a political economist who shall see further than any preceding political economist, than the judges selected by the University of Cambridge