Note 220 — APPENDIX,
Reading edition
Doctor Arbuthnot, describing the declining state of operas (in a letter printed in the Daily Journal), says, "I take the Beggars' Opera to be the touchstone to try British taste on, and it has accordingly proved effectual in discovering our true inclinations, which, how artfully soever they may be disguised by a childish fondness for Italian poetry and music, in preference to our own, will, in one way or other, start up and disclose themselves."