In a variety of amiable ways we were very well advanced in a companionship long before supper was served. Our friend, in addition to his handsome looks and elegant manners, appeared to have a good deal of knowledge of the world. His tastes, too, seemed extremely refined. He was well versed in Dryden, Virgil, and Shakespeare, and passed the highest encomiums on the genius of Mr. Henry Fielding. He contributed some excellently apposite remarks to the long-standing controversy respecting the merits of the author of _Tom Jones_ in comparison with those of the author of _Clarissa_. To my extreme gratification he declared strongly for the former, whereon Mrs. Cynthia, following the fashion of her sex, took up the cudgels very warmly for the latter. "My dear madam," says our friend, laughing in his musical tones, "the difference between those two authors is that between honest, searching brandy punch and tea twice watered with a good deal of sugar in it." "That is doubtless the case," says Cynthia. "But whereas the one may degrade a man to the level of a beast,"--I will do her the justice of saying she laid no particular stress on this simile, neither did she look at me, greatly to my relief--"the other is perfectly harmless, wholesome and stimulating. Mr. Richardson's morality hath never been impeached, but Mr. Fielding's hath never been defended." "It is not always the person who lifts up his voice the loudest, madam, who is the most worthy to be heard," says our friend gravely. "Nor is it he who makes the best parade of his virtue who is invariably the most valuable member of society. I dare say Mr. Fielding would blush as much to be found out in a good act as Mr. Richardson would to be caught in a bad one; but for all that I would prefer to recommend myself to the author of the so-called loose and scandalous _Tom Jones_, than he of the so-called high-toned _Clarissa_, were I in need of a dinner and a guinea." "Sir," says I, "you have put the gist of the matter excellently. You are one of the very few persons I have met who hath had the wit to draw this essential distinction between the characters of two such diverse writers. What the world is for ever failing to apprehend is that true morality, like true religion, has nothing to do with the profession of it; and that man who as often as not best serves his species is he who least pretends to do so."