Oh how the commonwealth doth need
Such justices as you!
Bishop Corbet’s epigram on Beaumont’s early death is well known:
He that hath such acuteness and such wit,
As would ask ten good heads to husband it;
He, that can write so well that no man dare
Refuse it for the best, let him beware:
Beaumont is dead, by whose sole death appears,
Wit’s a disease consumes men in few years.
Sir Walter Raleigh, the graceful and brilliant courtier, is thought by most students of the subject to have written The Lie. Though it has been attributed to various authors the weight of evidence is in favor of Raleigh.