We returned to _S--'s_ for tea, with the addition to our party of a distinguished philologian of this town, whose presence seemed to call forth all the intellectual energies of Strauss, so that, in the course of the evening, I had more than one occasion to admire the variety and depth of the man's attainments. It is impossible to recollect every thing, but what especially excited my attention was, that in a very learned discussion concerning the comparative merits of the ancient and modern drama, Strauss suggested the character and fate of Tiberius as the best subject for a tragedy in the whole compass of history. I was struck, too, and with reason, I think, with a new and flagrant instance of the conservative tendency which his mind seems of late to have fallen into. In talking of Horace, whose works, and particularly whose odes, he appeared to have at his fingers' ends, he defended the elder state of the texts with amazing pertinacity, treating with contempt every change and suggestion of such, which the sacrilegious commentators of our times have ventured upon. Such opinions in the mouth of the author of the _Leben Jesu_ sounded strange enough, and again I could not help saying to myself, "Why the deuce did he publish that destructive work of his twenty-seventh year?" The following day, being prevented by pressing engagements from leaving town, I prevailed upon Strauss to put off his journey for a day longer. I saw little of him in the mean time, and had therefore leisure to bring into some kind of order and method a series of objections which I had noted down during a second and more critical perusal of the _Leben Jesu_. On mature reflection, it had occurred to me that, after all, the Christian religion had, in the course of eighteen centuries, survived far worse things than even Strauss's book. This idea now gave me courage to look this Goliah in the face, and, though I was but a youth (so to speak), and he a "man of war," to go up against him, if occasion offered, even with my "scrip" and "sling," and my "five smooth stones out of the brook."