"When thirsty grief in wine we steep, When healths and draughts go free, _Fishes, that tipple in the deep, Know no such liberty_." We meet here also with that poem attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, called "The Lie," which seems to have a hereditary right to a place in all poetical collections. Miss Mitford speaks of "its extraordinary beauty." It is a very extraordinary delusion that any one, with such poetry before him as the English language now possesses, should call it beautiful. It is composed of the mere commonplaces of satire, very rudely put together. The soul of the speaker is sent forth to charge all the world with corruption; the world defends itself, and then the soul gives it the lie--in other words, repeats the charge in a manner which has been felt, it seems, by many readers, to be peculiarly pungent. The first verse is by far the best, and every subsequent verse seems to grow more loose and jejune as the composition proceeds. "Go, soul, the body's guest, Upon a thankless errand; Fear not to touch the best, The truth shall be thy warrant. Go, since I needs must die, And give the world the lie. "Go tell the court it glows, _And shines like rotten wood_; Go tell the church it shows _Men's good, and doth no good_: If church and court reply, Then give them both the lie." And so it goes on through thirteen wrangling, jangling verses. In some of them this virtuous soul makes a strange medley of complaints:-- "Tell them that brave it most They beg for more by spending, Who in their greatest cost Lack nothing but commanding: And if they make reply, Spare not to give the lie. "Tell zeal it lacks devotion; Tell love it is but lust; _Tell time it is but motion_; Tell flesh it is but dust: And wish them not reply, For thou must give the lie." There must have been surely a great charm in this "giving the lie," to have secured for verses such as these the place they have so long retained amongst our "Elegant Extracts." But we are in danger of forgetting that Miss Mitford's selections consist of prose as well as of poetry; and yet, though these occupy a large space in her volumes, they cannot detain us long. We have little room either for quotation or for comment.