and  Horace  a  tender  friendship  subsisted :  this  was  Kitty  Clive,
the  ^mous  actress ;  formerly  Kitty  Ruftar.  Horace  had  given
her  a  house  on  his  estate,  which  he  called  sometimes  '  Little
Strawberry  Hill,'  and  sometimes  '  Cliveden ;  and  here  Mrs.
Clive  lived  with  her  brother,  Mr.  Ruftar,  until  1785.  She
formed,  for  her  friend,  a  sort  of  outer-home,  in  which  he  passed
his  evenings.  Long  had  he  admired  her  talents.  Those  were
the  days  of  the  drama  in  all  its  glory :  the  opera  was  unfushion-
able.  There  were,  Horace  writes  in  1742,  on  the  26th  of  May,
only  two-and-forty  people  in  the  Opera  House,  in  the  pit  and
boxes  :  people  were  running  to  see  '  Miss  Lucy  in  Town,'  at
Drury  Lane,  and  to  admire  Mrs.  Clive,  in  her  imitation  of  the
Muscovites ;  but  the  greatest  crowds  assembled  to  wonder  at
Garrick,  in  ^*  Wine  Merchant  turned  Player;'  and  great  and
small  alike  rushed  to  Goodman's  Fields  to  see  him  act  all  parts,
and  to  laugh  at  his  admirable  mimicry.  It  was  perhaps,  some-
what in  jealousy  of  the  counter  attraction,  that  Horace  declared
he  saw  nothing  wonderful  in  the  acting  of  Garrick,  though  it
was  then  heresy  to  say  so.  '  Now  I  talk  of  players,'  he  adds  in
the  same  letter,  '  tell  Mr.  Chute  that  his  friend  Bracegirdle
breakfasted  with  me  this  morning.'  Horace  delighted  in  such
intimacies,  and  in  recalling  old  times.
