"Mr. Garrick," whose early residence was, according to the addresses of his letters, "at a perriwig maker's, corner of the Great Piazza, Covent Garden," saw good company at Hampton, where Walpole cultivated an intimacy with him, for Mrs. Clive's sake, as he pretended. Here is the actor at home, on August 15th, 1755. "I dined to-day at Garrick's," writes Walpole to Bentley; "there were the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu, the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one is Lord Chamberlain, the other Groom of the Stole, and the wife of a Secretary of State. This being _sur un assez bon ton_, for a player. Don't you want to ask me how I liked him? Do want, and I will tell you. I like _her_ exceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness too. I don't know how, he does not improve so fast upon me; there is a great deal of parts, and vivacity, and variety, but there is a great deal, too, of mimicry and burlesque. I am very ungrateful, for he flatters me abundantly; but, unluckily, I know it." Fifteen years later, Mrs. Delaney describes a day at Garrick's house at Hampton, and speaks as eulogistically of the hostess. "Mr. Garrick did the honours of his house _very respectfully_, and, though in high spirits, seemed sensible of the honour done them. Nobody else there but Lady Weymouth and Mr. Bateman. As to Mrs. Garrick, the more one sees her, the better one must like her; she seems _never_ to depart from a perfect propriety of behaviour, accompanied with good sense and gentleness of manners; and I cannot help looking on her as a _wonderful creature_, considering all circumstances relating to her." The above words referring to Garrick are held by Lady Llanover, the editor of Mrs. Delaney's correspondence, to be "high testimony to Garrick's tact and good-breeding, as few persons in his class of life know how to be '_respectful_,' and yet in '_high spirits_,' which is the greatest test of real refinement." This is severe, oh! gentlemen players; but the lady forgot that Mr. Garrick was the son of an officer and a gentleman. Walpole warned people against supposing that he and Garrick were intimate. When the actor and his wife went to Italy:--"We are sending to you," wrote Horace to Mann, "the famous Garrick and his once famous wife. He will make you laugh as a mimic; and as he knows _we_ are great friends, will affect great partiality to me; but be a little upon your guard, remember he is an _actor_." It is clear that Garrick, down at his villa, insisted on being treated as a gentleman. "This very day," writes Walpole to Mason, September 9,[115] 1772, "Garrick, who has dropped me these three years, has been here by his own request, and told Mr. Raftor how happy he was at the reconciliation. I did not know we had quarrelled, and so omitted being happy too."