He knew that he was himself no master, but he was manly enough to admire anybody who was nearer to mastery.

He was full of unaffected delight at Sedaine's busy and pleasing little comedy, _The Philosopher without knowing it_; it was so simple without being stiff, so eloquent without the shadow of effort or rhetoric.

After seeing it, Diderot ran off to the author to embrace him, with many tears of joyful sympathy and gratitude.

Sedaine, like Lillo, the author of Diderot's favourite play of _George Barn__well_, was a plain tradesman, and the success of his libretti for comic operas had not spoiled him.

He could find no more expansive words for his excited admirer than "_Ah, Monsieur Diderot, que vous etes beau_!"[268] Diderot was just as sensible of the originality and Aristophanic gaiety of Colle's brilliant play, _Truth in Wine_, though Colle detested the philosophic school from Voltaire downwards, and left behind him a bitterly contemptuous account of _The Natural Son_.[269] Of all comic writers, however, the author of the _Andria_ and the _Heautontimorumenos_ was Diderot's favourite.