All this clearly refers to _Falstaff_’s lyes only _as such_; and the objection seems to be, that he had not told them well, and with sufficient skill and probability. Indeed nothing seems to have been required of _Falstaff_ at any period of time but a good evasion. The truth is, that there is so much mirth, and so little of malice or imposition in his fictions, that they may for the most part be considered as mere strains of humour and exercises of wit, impeachable only for defect, when that happens, of the quality from which they are principally derived. Upon this occasion _Falstaff_’s evasions fail him; he is at the end of his invention; and it seems fair that, in defect of wit, the law should pass upon him, and that he should undergo the temporary censure of that Cowardice which he could not pass off by any evasion whatever. The best he could think of, was _instinct_: He was indeed a _Coward upon instinct_; in that respect _like a valiant lion, who would not touch the true Prince_. It would have been a vain attempt, the reader will easily perceive, in _Falstaff_, to have gone upon other ground, and to have aimed at justifying his Courage by a serious vindication: This would have been to have mistaken the true point of argument: It was his _lyes_, not his _Courage_, which was really in question. There was besides no getting out of the toils in which he had entangled himself: If he was not, he ought at least, by his own shewing, to have _been at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together_; whereas, it unfortunately appears, and that too evidently to be evaded, that he had run with singular celerity from _two_, after the exchange of _a few __ blows_ only. This precluded _Falstaff_ from all rational defence in his own person;—but it has not precluded me, who am not the advocate of his _lyes_, but of his _Courage_.