88
The PRESENT STATE
John Falstaff, with all the merry men of Eastcheap, are entirely of England, and please the English alone.
Let us then be satisfied, the world has allowed us superiority in the strength and justness of our sentiments, for it hath truth as a standard by which to compare them; we are placed inferior in regard to taste, for in this there is no standard to judge of our desert, our manners being unknown. Truth is a positive, taste a relative excellence. We may justly appeal from the the sentence of our judges; though we must do them the justice to own that their verdict has been impartial.
But it may be objected, that this is setting up a particular standard of taste inevery
