SOURCE: Papali, G. F. “The Kit-Cat Club.” In Jacob Tonson, Publisher: His Life and Work (1656-1736), pp. 86-109. Onehunga, Aukland: Tonson Publishing House, 1968.

[In the following excerpt from a work written in 1933, Papali examines the central role of Jacob Tonson in the Kit-Cat Club.]

Even if Jacob Tonson did not achieve anything great as a publisher, his claim to posterity's remembrane was established when he became the Secretary of the Kit-Cat Club, a distinguished assembly of some of the leading literary and social figures of the early eighteenth century. Such an honour in the company of eminent Whigs necessarily exposed Tonson, for a whole generation, to the shafts of Tory satirists. And the veiled and cowardly attacks made by political antagonists, as well as fragments of the correspondence of the Kit-Catters, are some of the valuable contemporary records warranting the conclusion that the Club was a humanely progressive institution that sought successfully to combine honest pleasure with genuine business.

There is no doubt that Jacob Tonson, “the touchstone of modern wit”, was its originator. In a satirical poem entitled Faction Displayed,¹ Jacob is made to declaim:

I am the Founder of your lov'd Kit-Cat
A Club that gave Direction to the State.
'Twas there we first instructed all our Youth
To talk Profane and Laugh at Sacred Truth;
We taught them how to Toast, and Rhime and Bite
To sleep away the Day, and Drink away the Night.

The version, generally accepted, of the origins of the Kit-Cat Club at a pastrycook's was first published by the “Scurrilous Ned Ward”,² and was freely adopted with slight variations by subsequent writers. All of them were agreed that the mutton pie, called after its maker, Christopher Catt,³ whose sign was the Cat and the Fiddle, had something to do with the naming of the Club. This Catt, probably a Norfolk man,⁴ has been identified as a member of the Society of Friends.⁵ Addison, who had first-hand knowledge of the Kit-Cat, may be trusted when he confirms the early connection of the Club with eating and drinking.⁶ But, whatever the immediate attractions, the successful working of the Club for well-nigh a quarter of a century after its inception must be attributed rather to the genius and capacities of Jacob Tonson than to the excellence of Christopher Catt's “oven trumpery”. In a poem, attributed to Blackmore,⁷ and published a year before the Secret History, the small beginnings of the Kit-Cat were suggested, followed by an apostrophe of “Great Bocaj”:⁸

Oh thou! who Chief art to the Muses dear,
Whom Poets court, and Statesmen love or fear …
For thou, whose fertile Genius does abound
With noble Projects didst this Order found …

The poet explained the circumstances favouring the establishment of the Club. Warlike William neglecting the Muses and ill respecting the mere poets, they were happy to accept the tender care of ‘Kinder Bocaj’:

He still caress'd the unregarded Tribe
And did to all their various Tasks prescribe
From whence to both great Acquisition came,
To him the Profit, and to them the Fame.

If the apathy of the King and the desire of the publisher to commercialise unappreciated talent were the real motives of this assemblage of wits that developed into a Club, then we know that Jacob Tonson was well advanced in the patronage of contemporary writers very much earlier than 1700, the date commonly accepted for the beginnings of the Kit-Cat.⁹ There had been a sort of “Clubbing with Ovid” in the eighties of the previous century. That could not have been the Kit-Cat; but that could well have been a forerunner—the poets and translators congregating under Tonson's auspices for the advancement of the cause of letters and the enjoyments of the social amenities of his providing.

John Dryden died in May 1700. The Kit-Cat, in which he held a place of honour,¹⁰ was by then well established.¹¹ In fact the expenses of Dryden's funeral were borne by the Club; and the bill of Russel the undertaker,¹² presented to Jacob Tonson for payment, was amongst the Baker collection of MSS.:

Double coffin	5£
Hanging the hall with a border of bays	5£
Six dozen paper escutcheons for the Hall	3£	12s.
Ten silk escutcheons for the Pall	2£	10s.
Three mourning coaches and six horses	2£	5s.
Silver desk and rosemary		5s.
Eight scarves for musicianers	2£
Seventeen yards of Crape to cover their instruments	1£	14s.
Archievement for the hearse	3£	10s.
The total was	45£	17s.

These figures¹³ are incidentally interesting as showing the poor disposal of the mortal remains of the greatest poet of Restoration England. Yet, devoid of State honours, he was not denied a democratic burial.

While the Club must have been in existence through part of King William's reign, Dryden's funeral was probably its first great social act, which provoked additional publicity at the hands of its political antagonists. Amongst the mourners that followed the hearse was

Jacob the Muse's Midwife, who well knows
To ease a lab'ring Muse of Pangs and Throws;
He oft has kept the Infant-Poet Warm,
Oft licked th' unwieldly Monster into Form;
Oft do they in high Flights and Raptures swell,
Drunk with the Waters of our Jacob's Well.(14)

The lines referring to the Kit-Cat Club in the Patentee,¹⁵ another satire in verse bearing on Dryden's funeral, also point to the activities of the Club having started earlier than 1700. By the time Dryden passed away, its members had become habituated to the literary, social and theatrical activities for which the Kit-Cat became famous:

Butchers and Bailiffs now the Boxes fill,
Where Ladies eyes were Instruments to kill,
Where Kit-Cats sate, and Toasters would be seen,
These swoln with wit, and those with leachery lean.

Jacob Tonson had prevailed upon Sir Godfrey Kneller to paint the portraits of the members of his Club. They were done to a special size, subsequently known as the Kit-Cat.¹⁶ Dryden's portrait must have been done during the poet's lifetime. It was quite possible that it was executed about the time Sir Godfrey painted Congreve's portrait.¹⁷ Tonson's own picture, which on being shown to Dryden he is reported to have written down the satiric lines on Jacob, could not have been completed, if the story be true, before the Tonson-Dryden misunderstanding over the Virgil in 1697-8.¹⁸ At any rate, a beginning had been made at least five years before Dryden's death of the portrait gallery of the distinguished persons composing the Kit-Cat Club. It is significant that almost all the Kit-Catters were amongst the subscribers to the Virgil.

According to Ned Ward,¹⁹ Tonson first met Christopher Catt at Ball Court in Gray's Inn Lane, and prevailed upon him for a transfer of his business to Shire Lane, now non-existent but then running parallel to Chancery Lane in Fleet Street. This sounds plausible: Tonson might have met Catt when visiting his sister-in-law, Mary Tonson, also in Gray's Inn Lane. And, being interested in providing his writers with occasional feasts of delicacies and good wine, as the Miscellanies and the classical translations were in progress, very probably he had held out temptations to Catt to come near him. Tonson had certainly heard of Dryden's alleged lounging at Herringman's in those early days, when

He turn'd a journeyman to a Bookseller;
Writ prefaces to books for Meat and Drink
And as he paid, he would both write and think.(20)

That Tonson did meet the cost of Dryden's dinners occasionally is revealed in the poet's letters.²¹ The Club was originally the natural extension of the publisher's hospitality to his other associates in literary production.

As Christopher Catt moved to Shire Lane, Jacob Tonson had come to Fleet Street (1694). The publisher had also by that time acquired the reputation of being an “Amphibeous Mortal, Chief Merchant to the Muses … who had a sharp eye towards his own interest, having riggled himself into the company of a parcel of Poetical young sprigs, who had just wean'd themselves from their Mother University.”²² The reference here was to the young recruits engaged in translations for Tonson; they

having more wit than Experience, put but a slender value as yet upon their Maiden Performances. Besides, this happy Acquaintance of these Sons of Parnassus gave him a lucky Opportunity of promoting the Interest of his beloved Engineer, so skill'd in the Fortification of Chees-Cakes, Pies and Custards. Bocai wisely observing the good effects of this Paistry Entertainment, and finding that Pies to Poets were as agreeable Food as Ambrosia to the Gods, very cunningly propos'd their Weekly Meeting at the same Place; and that himself would be oblig'd to continue the like Feast every Club Day, provided they would do him the Honour to let him have the Refusal of all their Juvenile Products, which generous proposal was readily agreed to by the whole Poetick clan. When Bocai had thus far been successful in his new molition he had now nothing else to do but to lay fresh foundations for his young Artificers to build upon, and never to come empty without some Project in his Head that might have a probable tendency to his own Profit. Now, every week, the Listening Town was charm'd with some wonderful offspring of their Teeming Noddles. And the Fame of Kit-Cat began to extend to the utmost Limits of our learned Metropolis.”

Originating therefore as a convivial gathering of Tonson's friends amongst writers, the Club attained prominence through the ebullitions of their wit. And the publisher, rich in Dryden's favour, further enlisted the support of the leading patrons of letters whom he had placated by means of flattering dedications and the inclusion of the “Cutts” of their family emblems to his translated classics. That the eminent lords and statesmen, whose names have come down to us as constituting the Kit-Cat galaxy, were active participants in the famous repast provided for them at The Cat and the Fiddle is clear from the allusions in the prologue to Charles Burnaby's The Reform'd Wife:²³

Often for change the meanest things are good
Thus tho' the Town all delicacies afford,
A Kit-Cat is a supper for a Lord.
But if your Nicer taste resolves to Day,
To have no relish for our Author's Play …
So thus when heavily the moments pass,
Toaster's to Circulate the lazy Glass
By nameing some bright nymph their draughts refine,
And taste at once the joys of Love and Wine.

The members of the Kit-Cat used to elect their “toasts” for the year from amongst the beautiful ladies of the land.²⁴ Poems composed in their honour were inscribed on the drinking glasses of the Club. That this habit had early started is undoubted.²⁵ Steele has left a graphic description of the procedure followed in the choice of the lady to be toasted during a year:²⁶

Though this institution had so trivial a beginning, it is now elevated to a formal order, and that happy Virgin who is received and drunk to at their meetings has no more to do in this life but to judge and accept of the first good offer. The manner of her inauguration is much like that of the choice of Doge in Venice; it is performed by balloting; and when she is so chosen she reigns indisputably for that ensuing year; but must be elected anew to prolong her empire a moment beyond it. When she is regularly chosen, her name is written with a diamond on one of the drinking glasses. The heiroglyphic of the diamond is to shew her that her value is imaginary and that of the glass to acquaint her that her condition is frail, depends on the hand which holds her.

That Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, as a child, was hailed a toast of the Kit-Cat Club is recorded by her granddaughter, Lady Louisa Stuart. Lady Mary, born in May 1689,²⁷ was not yet eight at the time she was hailed as a “toast”. This strengthens the theory that the Club was functioning for some years before Dryden's death, and was probably inaugurated in 1695-6. Lady Stuart's well known narrative²⁸ of Lord Kingston's nomination of Mary Pierrepont, as she then was, will bear reproduction here:

As a leader of the fashionable world, and a strenuous whig in party, he of course belonged to the Kit-Cat Club. One day at a meeting to choose toasts for the year, a whim ceased him to nominate her, then not eight years old, a candidate alleging that she was far prettier than any lady on their list. The other members demurred because the rules of the club forbade them to elect a beauty whom they had never seen. ‘Then you shall see her,’ cried he, and in a gaiety of the moment sent orders home to have her finely dressed and brought to him at the tavern where she was received with acclamations, her claim unanimously allowed, her health drunk by every one present, and her name engraved in due form upon a drinkingglass. The company consisting of some of the most eminent men in England, she went from the lap of one poet, or patriot, or statesmen, to the arms of another, was feasted with sweet meats, overwhelmed with caresses, and, what perhaps already pleased her better than either, heard her wit and beauty loudly extolled on every side. Pleasure, she said, was too poor a word to express her sensations; they amounted to ecstacy: never again, throughout her whole future life did she pass so happy a day. Nor indeed, could she; for the love of admiration which this scene calculated to excite or increase, could never again be so fully gratified: there is always some allaying ingredient in the cup, some draw-back upon the triumphs of people. Her father carried on the frolic, and, we may conclude, confirmed the taste, by having her picture²⁹ painted for the Club room, that she might be enrolled a regular toast.

We know that the publisher's Whig sympathies became more articulate after Dryden's death. And subsequently the meetings of the Club were transferred to the more conspicuous Fountain Tavern³⁰ in the Strand. This place had attained a reputation as the erstwhile rendezvous of the Revolutionaries responsible for the overthrow of the Stuarts:

Here crown'd with Clusters Bacchus kept his Court,
Wher mighty vats his cheerful Throne support;
High o'ver the Gate he hung his wavering sign,
A Fountain Red with overflowing Wine.
Here Politicians us'd to recreate
Their Lungs exhausted with their long Debate,
In settling, or perplexing Points of State …
One night in seven, at this convenient seat
Indulgent Bocaj did his Muses treat,
Their Drink was gen'rous wine, and Kit-Cat's Pyes their meat,
Here he assembled his Poetic Tribe,
Past Labours to Reward, and new ones to prescribe.
Hence did th' Assemblys Title first arise
And Kit-Cat Wits sprung first from Kit-Cats Pyes.(31)

Before Jacob Tonson first crossed the channel he had acquired, on a lease from the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's, a country house and garden at Barn Elms, in Surrey, in close proximity to the historic mansion, now the headquarters of the Ranelagh Club. Here the Club used to hold occasional meetings. Writing to Amsterdam in June 1703, Vanbrugh informed Tonson:

In short, the Kit-Cat wants you much more than you ever can do them. Those who are in town are in great desire of waiting on you at Barn Elms.

Again, on 10 July,

The Kit-Catt³² will never meet without you, so you see here's a general stagnation for want of you.³³

Delightfully situated alongside the Thames, about 6 miles from London, Barn Elms was a favourite picnic resort of the élite. In an undated note Vanbrugh reported:

I have just been with Ld Carlisle, who had nam'd Friday for the Barns Expedition. I have seen Lady Marlborough since, and shee agrees to it, and will order a barge at Whitehall. The Company she names are—two ladys besides herself, Ld Carlisle, Lord Clare, Horace Walpole, Dr Sam. Garth and Mr Benson.

Tonson was proud of Barn Elms, and devoted a good deal of his time and money to enlarge the cottage. He built a hall large enough to accommodate the members of the Kit-Cat, and the Club used to meet there occasionally.³⁴ In one of Vanbrugh's letters sent to Tonson in Paris on 29 November 1719, Vanbrugh made humorous reference to his love for Barn Elms:

… You are so far from forgetting your old Mistress Barnes that you intend to compliment her in the spring with 500£ for a new pretty coat. For my part I think she deserves it, for the pleasures she has given you, and I heartily wish her well for those she has spared me … Her charms dont lye in her beauty, but her good conditions. She feels better than she looks, and what she wants in her eyes, she has in her commodity; and thence it was, I always found a tete-a-tete more pleasing with you there, than I should have done it at Blenheim, had the house been my own, tho' without my Lady Marlborough for my wife in it. For one may find a great deal of pleasure in building a palace for another; when one should find very little in living in it oneself.

Again, Sir John recalled on 12 August 1725, the first night spent by the Kit-Catters at Barnes:

… We went to Lord Cobhams seeing Middleton story by the way, and eating a cheerful cold loaf at a very humble ale-house; I think the best meal I ever eat, except the first supper at the kitchen in Barnes.

Besides the meetings at the Fountain and at Barn Elms, the Club used to make occasional excursions to Hampstead Heath:

… (or when) Apollo like, thou‘rt pleas'd to lead Thy sons to feast on Hampstead's Airy Head; Hampstead, that now in Fame Parnassus shall exceed.³⁵

A proposal in Jacob Tonson's hand,³⁶ bearing date 15 May 1702, provided for

Subscriptions for erecting a Conveneent Reception uppon Hamsted Heath for the Kit-Cat Society. To be finished by the following spring. If the Club shall not think Hamsted best to be in any other place.

The expenses were met by subscriptions of 10 guineas each paid by 13 members. The list mentioned “Wharton, Controller, and Carlisle, Manchester, Essex, Cornwallis, J. Dormer, Hartington, S. Compton, Mohun, Grafton, S. Garth” and others.

On the eastern side of Hampstead High Street and on the edge of the Heath, is a handsome domestic building now a private residence, but formerly the Upper Flask Inn or Tavern, a place of some notoriety. At this house of public entertainment, the Kit-Cat Club held their meetings during the summer months, and bright indeed were the wits who assembled on these festive occasions. When the house was converted into a private abode, it became the property of the late George Stevens.³⁷

Tonson, as secretary of the Club, organised the meetings. Seating arrangements at Club dinners were, we understand from Tonson's own notes,³⁸ in the style of the University Halls, an upper table being provided for the aristocracy and a lower one for the others. The members paid for their own drinks, except, perhaps, when Tonson was entertaining them.

The number of members, originally said to have been 39, was actually 48 if the Kit-Cat portraits provided a reliable index. Dryden's membership has been questioned, but the circumstances, detailed above, leave no room for doubt that he was in it. Spence³⁹ narrates that during the last 10 years of Dryden's life he used to drink a lot in company with Addison. Addison once told Bishop Berkley that he had been in danger of losing his religion by living with the Whigs. And when we hear Tonson exclaiming that “one day or other you'll see that man a Bishop; I am sure he looks that way; and indeed I ever thought him a priest in his heart”,⁴⁰ we can well understand the fears of that good man in the exuberance of Tavern life. Rowe's satiric Dialogue between Tonson and Congreve⁴¹ further stresses the fact that life in the publisher's Fleet Street establishment naturally paved the way for the Kit-Cat nights of revelry:

TONSON:
While at my house in Fleet Street once you lay
How merrily, dear Sir, time passed away!
While I partook your wine, your wit and mirth,
I was the happiest creature on God's yearth!
CONGREVE:
While in your early Days of Reputation,
You for blue Garters had not such a Passion;
While yet you did not use, (as now your trade is,)
To drink with noble Lords and Toast their Ladies,
Thou Jacob Tonson, wer't to my conceiving.
The cheerfullest, best, honest fellow living.

The membership was, of course, limited to the Whigs, and comprised statesmen, poets, warriors and doctors. Details of the initiation of but a few of them have come down as anecdotes, and these indicate the place of honour occupied by Tonson amongst the aristocrats of blood and learning. On the occasion of the admission of Charles Lord Mohun, he broke down the gilded emblem on the top of his chair. That caused Jacob to remark that “a man who would do that would cut a man's throat”.⁴² So that, adds Spence on Pope's report, “he had the good and forms of society much at heart”.⁴³ The part played by Sir Harry Furness and the Duke of Marlborough in the affairs of the Club are referred to in two of Maynwaring's letters to the Duchess of Marlborough. The first of these was probably written in November (or December) 1708:⁴⁴

Sir H. Furness entrusted me to manage an affair of great consequence for him with the Duke of Marlborough and was angry with me this morning for having neglected it so many days; therefore I beg leave to trouble your Grace with it now and to ask your assistance. Sir Henry says when the Duke Marlborough wished him joy of his great promotion in the Kit-Cat, and enquired when he gave his feast, his Grace did let fall some words which made his heart leap for joy, intimating that he himself should like to be at it; and if that could be brought about, he would carry the club into the city, and give such an entertainment as never was seen there. I can only say that, if his Grace shall be at leisure to be there next Thursday, it will be an honour which every member will be proud of, even my Lord Wharton, whom I have consulted upon this occasion; and they will certainly testify their gratitude by some publick act of more importance, in my poor opinion, than the resolutions of both Houses of Parliament. …

Again, on 19 November 1709, he wrote:⁴⁵

… I congratulate your Grace upon the victory which your servant, Sir H. Furness⁴⁶ obtained last Thursday in the Kit-Cat Club. My Lord Wharton had mustered all his forces to unravel what had been done the week before, for which his Lordship has a particular genius; and the Lord Mohun was prepared to open the debate, but the members were so visibly on the knights' side, that there was not a word said against him, and he was peaceably introduced to a place which he had as much a mind to, as all the world has to places of another kind. I send Your Grace this observation, to shew you that the Duke of Marlborough begins to be in favour with him, which is the more remarkable because Lord Haversham has certainly a hand in that paper: with whom, you know 6 (Sunderland) has a private negotiation. …

An unpublished letter⁴⁷ of the Earl of Derwentwater to the Duke of Newcastle dated 10 December 1709, and subscribed with his signet, reported:

The Duke of Marlborough was at (Sir Harry) Furnises admitted extraordinary to the Kit-Cat Club, and Jacob Tonson order'd to dedicate Caesar's Commentaries to him and not to the Duke of Ormond as he had promised, and six of the members are to write the epistle to him.

Jacob gladly complied with the directions of the Club, and when in 1712, Clarke's Caesar was issued, “Sumptibus et Typis Jacobi Tonson”, it carried a large-folio engraving of the Duke's portrait, as painted by Kneller, facing the “Dedicatio: Nobilissimo, Sapientissimo et Fortissimo Johani Duci de Marlborough”.

Jacob Tonson had availed himself of the sound taste of Kit-Cat Club not merely to procure “copy” for his business, but also to evaluate and select the matter for publishing. Devoid of much learning himself, he was not devoid of sound sense. He had beside him the best available critics and judges of literature, and abided by their advice. During Dryden's lifetime, Tonson was the most privileged publisher of his day, and he had the benefit of his unique taste and judgment. Jointly they exercised a jealous care to maintain as high a level of excellence in their Miscellanies as possible.⁴⁸ After Dryden's death Tonson missed his guiding hand; but the publisher had, in the meanwhile, gained an experience, all his own, and cultivated the friendship of eminent Kit-Catters, like Walsh, Congreve, Garth,⁴⁹ Addison, Maynwaring, Somers, Steele and others. It was on the recommendation of the Kit-Cat critics that Tonson wrote his first letter to Pope. This contact led to Pope undertaking to translate the Epistle of Sapho to Phaon and to other transactions culminating in Pope's Shakespeare.

Tonson's unique position in the Kit-Cat was at once the theme of hostile vituperation as well as of hyperbolic commendation. For instance:

Now the Assembly to adjourn prepar'd,
When Bibliopolo from behind appear'd,
As well describ'd by th' Satyrick Bard;
With leering Looks, Bull-faced and Freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-colour'd Hair,
With Frowzy Pores, that taint the ambient Air.
Sweating and Puffing for a while he stood,
And then broke forth in this Insulting Mood.
‘I am the Touchstone of all Modern Wit,
Without my Stamp in vain your Poets write.
Those only purchase ever-living Fame,
That in my Miscellany plant their name.
Nor therefore think that I can bring no Aid,
Because I follow a Mechanick Trade;
I'll print your Pamphlets, and your Rumours spread.(50)

and in striking contrast:

No sweeter Lays, nor more harmonious strains,
E'er blest Parnassus, or th' Arcadian Plains.
The tuneful tribe with praise each other crown,
And Bocaj with a nod approves Apollo's son …
For Men of Wit do Men of Wit inspire,
And emulation strikes out nobler Fire …
Now Crowds to Founder Bocaj did resort,
And for his Favour humbly made their Court,
The little wits attended at his Gate,
And Men of Title did his Levee wait.
Nor he as Sovereign, by Prerogative
Old Members did exclude, and new receive.
He judged who most were for the Order fit,
And Chapters held, to make new Knights of Wit …
They were by all esteemed, by all carest,
The joy of all the Town, The Life of every Feast,
If not a Kit-Cat wit or two were there,
Flat was the wine, and tasteless was the chear.(51)

The Kit-Cat Club had early acquired a reputation for its patronage of the stage, because of the eminent dramatic composition of its membership and the secretary's continued activities in theatrical publishing. More than the fact that the members were “habitues of the theatre”, the prominent part played by the Club in the erection of the Queen's Theatre, or the Italian Opera House in Haymarket, exposed the Kit-Catters to repeated abusive notice at the hands of their political antagonists. In a Tory caricature⁵² of a typical member of the Kit-Cat Club, the unnamed personality is indicated by his activities. He is

said to subscribe largely to the Building of the New Playhouse … He imagines no one will doubt his conversion from a gentleman of indifferent abilities into a statesman after he has been a principal contributor towards the Transforming a stable into a Theatre.

Sir John Vanbrugh, the originator of the scheme and the architect of the playhouse, was one of Tonson's most intimate friends, who frequently confined in the publisher his life's joys and sorrows. Vanbrugh wrote to Tonson at Amsterdam on 15 June 1703:

I finished my purchase for the Playhouse, and all the tenants will be out by Midsummer day; so then I lay the cornerstone and tho' the season be thus far advanced have pretty good assurance I shall be ready for business at Christmas.

Again on 13 July, he reported to his friend:

Mr. Wms. has finish'd all the writings for the ground for the Playhouse; they will be engross'd and I believe signed by Friday or Saturday; which done, I have all things ready to fall to work on Monday. The ground is the second stable yard going up the Haymarket; I give 200 for it; but have layd such a scheme of matters, that I shall be reimburs'd every penny of it by the spare ground; but this is a secret lest they should lay hold on't to lower the rent. I have drawn a design for the whole disposition of the inside, very different from any other house in being; but I have the good fortune to have it absolutely approv'd by all that have seen it. However, I'll willingly be at the expense of a draught of that where you are, if you'll give yourself the trouble to order it.

Vanbrugh had evidently been pleased with his drawings; but, unfortunately, what looked fine on paper proved ineffective in brick and plaster.⁵³ Tonson, it is seen, helped Vanbrugh to perfect his drawings by getting him from Holland “a copy of Palladio with plans of the houses he built”.

The scheme of the new theatre had received the Queen's approval, who, in 1704, empowered Vanbrugh and Congreve “to collect a company to act any play whatsoever”.⁵⁴ There were protests from Tory quarters, which assumed the shape of a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, an article in Defoe's Review,⁵⁵ as well as a lampoon entitled A Kit-Cat C——b Described 1705.⁵⁶

It is however undoubted that 30 subscribers contributing £100 each towards the cost of the theatre, came from amongst the Whig members of the Kit-Cat Club. These contributors were assured a “free” seat in the theatre for life at all performances they chose to attend. If Cibber is to be trusted,⁵⁷ there was an inscription to the “Little Whig” or the Countess of Sunderland, one of the toasts of the Kit-Cat Club, on the foundation stone of the theatre laid by the Duke of Somerset on 18 April 1704. The first night at Haymarket opened a year later,⁵⁸ with Giacomo Greber's The Lovers of Ergasto, as acted by a new set of Italian singers. Operas were then very popular, and the popularity continued to grow as years passed. Vanbrugh wrote to Tonson, seven years before Gay's Beggars Opera was written, on 31 December 1719:

The opera will begin about the 10th of March, under the Academy of Music. It will be a very good one this year and better the next; they having engag'd the best singers in Italy, at a great price, such as I believe will bring the expense to about twice as much as the receipts. But the fund subscribed being about £20,000 may probably support it, till music takes such root, as to subsist with less aid. The King gives a £1000 a year to it.

In the edition of Tom Brown's Amusement Serious and Comical Calculated for the Meridian of London, which was issued as revised in 1707-8,⁵⁹ there is a satiric pen-picture of the playhouse:

The L(ord) D(orset) is known by his Ribbon, and T(om) D(urfey) or some other impertinent poet talking nonsense to him; and the L——— sitting on the Kit-Cat side, and Jacob (Tonson) standing Door-keeper for him. …

As the secretary of the Club interested in the theatre, it was Tonson's privilege to wait at the door for his friends and to receive and accommodate them as they arrived and to see to their comforts and conveniences.⁶⁰

… And if this Description does not sufficiently point him to you, you have nothing to do but apply yourself to J——— T——— the Kit-Kat Door-Keeper, and if he is not sullen through his late ill-usage, he can shew you his picture with the Rest that belong to the c——b, for tho' he does not know himself, his L——— has taken care that others shall know him.⁶¹

It is said that during the operatic season, the Club's convivialities were confined to the Queen's Arms⁶² in Pall Mall. Tonson did not overlook the possibilities of a small “topical” trade, and newspapers⁶³ of the day, as well as the Term Catalogues,⁶⁴ carried Tonson's announcements of operas new, revived or reprinted.

Spence⁶⁵ has handed down the report he had had of Pope about a paper dated 1709 and in Lord Halifax's handwriting referring to a Kit-Cat subscription of 400 guineas for the encouragement of good comedies:

Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Maynwaring, Stepney, Walpole & Pultney were of it, so was Lord Dorset, and the present Duke Maynwaring … was the ruling man in all conversations, indeed, what he wrote had very little merit in it. Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Essex were also members.

If to be able to drink and be merry together in eminent company conduces to the formation of friendships, to be exposed to lampoons and jibes in a common cause helps to strengthen these bonds. The more repeatedly Tonson and his collaborators in the service of letters were subjected to ridicule or calumny, the more steadfastly did they hold together.

In 1703, when Jacob was in Holland purchasing paper and getting the engravings done for his Caesar, he received repeated reminders of the affections of the Kit-Catters, who wearied of his absence. The Duke of Somerset was the first to write to him.⁶⁶ “Our Club is dissolved, till you revive it again; which we are impatient of,” Congreve stated in a letter dated 1 July 1703,⁶⁷ “Barn Elms wants you, and I long to see it; but don't care to satisfy my curiosity before you come”. Vanbrugh, however, writing with greater familiarity on 13 July acknowledged Tonson's letter, which he showed to Lord Halifax and Congreve. “We drank your health and quick return; but gave some hard words to your book since it robs us so long of your company. … the Kitt-Catt too will never meet without you; so you can see here's a general stagnation for want of you.” On the 30th Vanbrugh wrote again, and gave Tonson a graphic description of Lord Wharton falling ill, and taking an elaborate leave of his family and tenants, he

shook 'em every one by the hand, and by his usual treatment of honest Tom, Dick and so forth, bid 'em farewell, and stick firm to their principles, then recommended himself heartily to the Kit-Cat and dyed. He got a little sleep that night: by God's help and doctor's was better next day; and on Wednesday Garth left him out of danger.⁶⁸

Continuing,

I have here sent you my own coat of arms and have written to Lord Carlisle for his;⁶⁹ but if you spend much more of your time about 'em in Holland, we will resolve never to subscribe to another book that must carry you beyond sea.

While Tonson's friends at home realised the cause of his delay abroad, the Tories attributed political motives to it.⁷⁰ Vanbrugh explained that the publisher was suspected of being a Whig emissary on a secret mission to the Elector of Hanover:

The Duke of Somerset had had severall letters from you; but do you know that the Tories (even the wisest of 'em) have been very grave upon your going to Holland; they often say (with a nod) that Caesars Cmts. might have been carry'd through without a voyage to Holland; there are meanings in that subscription, and that list of names may serve for farther engagements than paying three guineas a piece for a book; in short I could win a hundred pounds, if I were sure you had not made a trip to Hanover, which you may possibly hear sworn when you come home again; so I'd advise you to bring a very exact journal, well attested.⁷¹

About 1700, Mathew Prior, then a member of the Kit-Cat Club, was in the thick of the life of literary London for which he had been pining. He wrote to Abraham Stanyan from Whitehall on 8 January:

Tomorrow night Betterton (sic) acts Falstaff, and to encourage that poor house the Kit-Katters have taken one side box, and the Knights of the Toast have taken the other. We have made up a prologue for Sir John in favour of eating and drinking and to rally your Toasts, and I have on this occasion four lines upon Jacob. …

N.B. My Lord Dorset is at the head of us, & Lord Carbury is the general of the enemy's forces, & that we dine at my Lord Dorset's & go thence in a body.⁷²

Prior had offended the Whigs by his attacks on the Duke of Marlborough at a time when he was enjoying a pension of £400 per annum derived from the Duke's kindness. His association with the Tories was so notorious, that the Duchess of Marlborough did not hesitate to speak in one breath of Swift and Prior as “underworkmen of prostituted consciences and hardened faces … in the service of the opposition”.⁷³ Prior's dismissal, therefore, from the Kit-Cat Club was expected. Tonson had previously reason to resent his alleged share in The Hind and the Panther transvers'd to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse (1687). And although he had occasionally published his poems, Prior was not quite pleased with the inattention paid to some of his manuscripts. For in forwarding to Tonson on 13 September 1695⁷⁴ his English parody of Boileaux, Ode Sur la Prise de Namur …, he was not without fears that his copy “probably may lye (in) the lumber of yor shop with some of my former works. …”⁷⁵

After his expulsion from the Kit-Cat, Prior joined the Brothers, a “decent” society of the best Tories, formed by Henry St John, Lord Bolingbroke, with “none of the extravagance of the Kit-Cat, none of the drunkenness of the Beaf-Steak”.⁷⁶ There he joined hands with Swift, Arbuthnot, and even Defoe in Harley's press campaign of the Examiner. Prior's authorship of the attack of the Whigs, and especially of Garth in No. 6 of that periodical, is undoubted.⁷⁷ He wrote:

The Collective Body of the Whigs have already engrossed our Riches; and their Representatives, the Kit-Cat have pretended to make a Monopoly of our sense. Thus it happens, that Mr. P———r, by being expelled the Club, ceases to be a Poet; and Sir Harry F———e becomes one, by being admitted into it. 'Tis here that Wit and Beauty are decided by Plurality of Voices: The Child's Judgment shall make H———y pass for a Fool; and Jacob's Indulgence shall preserve Lady H———t from the Tallow candle. …

Then followed a damning criticism of Dr Garth's Poem to the Earl of Godolphin. The reply by Addison appeared in the Whig Examiner, the first number of which was issued exactly a week later, on 14 September 1710. After reviewing the attack on Garth, step by step, he ridiculed Prior with his own inimitable irony. Incidentally he defended the Whigs and the Kit-Cat, and concluded:

… We are now in an Age where impudent Assertions must pass for Arguments. And I don't question but the same, who has endeavoured here to prove, that he who wrote the Dispensary was no Poet, will very suddenly undertake to shew, that he who joined the Battle of Blenheim is no General …⁷⁸

Another poet who was punished for his attachment to the Tory interest was Tom D'Urfey:

It appears that the members of the renowned Kit-Cat Club requested their founder to bake some mutton-pieces with Durfey's Works under them. On one occasion the Club complained that the pies were never baked enough, when Christopher Kat, the pastry cook, swore that Durfey's Works were so cold that the dough could not bake for them.⁷⁹

To the Whigs, however, the Club proved the most enjoyable. An undated letter of Pelham's to Tonson reported: “Lord L——— got drunk one night at the Kit-Cat.” Writing from Vienna on 24 March 1703, G. Stepney promised to contribute something to the Miscellany:

I intend to write to my Ld Halifax to whom I desire my respects may be presented if you see him before I write to him. My heart affections to the Kit-Cat. I often wish it were my fortune to make one with you at 3 in the morning.

The meetings of the Club were continued till about 1720, when Jacob Tonson was preparing for his retirement in Herefordshire. In the previous year Dr Abel Evans, the Oxford divine and poet who had sent some poems to Tonson, wrote as follows:

If the Club do not like those verses and you do not think of printing 'em I would have you send 'em me back by the post for I have got another bookseller that will print 'em. I know a great many people that do like 'em and there is no manner of harm done.

This was probably one more of those instances of Tonson's hesitation to publish contrary to the tastes of the Kit-Cat. Evans was a friend of Swift's, and Tonson could not be party to the publishing of the veiled allusions to the Court in the poem.⁸⁰

The portraits of the Kit-Catters as painted by Kneller⁸¹ were hung up in Tonson's house at Barn Elms, whence they were removed to Water Oakley near Windsor, where Richard Tonson, M.P., the grand nephew of Jacob senior, established himself after his brother Jacob's death in 1767. They are now in the possession of Mr H. Clinton Baker, the Squire of Bayfordbury, Hampshire, whose ancestor had married Mary, the elder daughter of Jacob Tonson junior.⁸² The design that old Jacob had of recording the story of the Kit-Cat Club⁸³ remained unaccomplished at the time of his death.

The Kit-Cat portraits were arranged at Barn Elms in the following order:

Over the Chimney:
          Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle
          Henry Fiennes Clinton, Earl of Lincoln
In the first row:
          Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset
          William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire
          Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond and Lennox
          Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton
          John Montagu, Duke of Montagu
          Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset
          Richard Lumley, Earl of Scarborough
          Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle
          Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham
          Thomas Hopkins, Esq.
          William Walsh, Esq.
          Algernon Capel, Earl of Essex
          James Berkeley, Earl of Berkeley
          John Vaughan, Earl of Carbery
          Charles Cornwallis, Lord Cornwallis
          Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax
          John Somers, Baron of Evesham
          Thomas Wharton, Marquis of Wharton
          Charles Montagu, Duke of Manchester
          Evelyn Pierrepont, Marquis of Dorchester
In the second row:
          Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Duke of Dorset
          Charles Mohun, Baron Mohun
          Sir Robert Walpole
          Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington
          James Stanhope, Earl Stanhope
          William Pulteney, Earl of Bath
          John Dormer, Esq.
          John Tidcomb, Esq.
          Abraham Stanyan, Esq.
          Richard Boyle, Earl of Burlington
          Sir Godfrey Kneller
          Jacob Tonson, Esq.
          Sir John Vanbrugh
          William Congreve, Esq.
          Joseph Addison, Esq.
          Sir Samuel Garth
          Sir Richard Steele
          Arthur Maynwaring, Esq.
          George Stepney, Esq.
          Francis Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin
          John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough
          Richard Boyle, Viscount Shannon
          Charles D'Artiquenave
          Edward Hopkins, Esq.
          Edward Dunch, Esq.
          Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon
making in all 49 portraits.(84)

In that age of Club life, the Kit-Cat had its many imitators and rivals. The October, for instance, comprising the Tories, counted 160 of the most violent men. Daniel Defoe described it as

… a faction of the hot exasperated part of the people called the Tories, composed of oath-taking Jacobites, self-contradicting, moon blind highflyers—men that walk in their sleep, dream waking, see with their eyes shut, and are blind with their eyes open.⁸⁵

There was then the Scriblerus Club, of which Pope and Swift were among the members, and which, like the Kit-Cat, was known for several jeux d' esprit between the members and Lord Oxford.⁸⁶

The Beafsteak⁸⁷ and the Macaroni were purely convivial gatherings, and did not equal in their gravity and worth the meetings at Catt's pie-shop. The World in Pall Mall, and Dr Johnson's The Club of a later period, were quasi-literary bodies modelled on the Kit-Cat, but even they have not left behind such a varied record of achievements as the Kit-Cat. They all lacked what was perhaps most needed for literary success, the services of a progressive publisher like Tonson. To have brought together such a distinguished personnel as the Kit-Cat society in the agreeable service of fine arts and good taste, and to have kept them willingly engaged for over two decades was an achievement unique in the history of bookselling and publishing.

Notes

1. Attributed to W. Shippen; first published 1704, reissued 1705.

2. Author of the Secret History of the Clubs (1709).

3. Also spelt, “Cat” or “Katt”. “Immortal made as Kit-Cat by his pies”: Dr King, The Art of Cookery. “Kit-Cat is a supper for a Lord”; prologue to C. Burnaby's The Reformed Wife (1700).

4. “Kett” and “Catt” as well as “Ketton” and “Kitten” are well-known Norfolk names: Notes and Queries, v series, iii, 27 March 1875, p. 259.

5. In the archives of the Norwich monthly meeting is an original letter dated London, “9th of 5th mo. 1711”, signed “Chr. Catt” and addressed to his co-religionists in Norwich: Notes and Queries, op. cit.

6. “Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree. … The Kit-Kat Club itself is said to have taken its original from a mutton pie”: The Spectator, No. 9, 10 March 1711.

7. The Kit-Cat, a Poem (1708). In an advertisement the reader is informed that the poem was “writ some years ago … and not designed for the Press; but the author having unwarily let a copy of it go out of his hands, which he has been able to discover, has at length thought fit to make it publick. …”

8. An inversion of “Jacob”.

9. See Allen, R. W.: The Kit-Cat Club and the Theatre. (The Review of English Studies, January 1931).

10. In a Satire on Modern Translators, attributed to Prior & published about 1698, Dryden was described as “The Head of the Gang … Bayes who by all the Club thought most fit …” Now, the only Club that the poet was associated with in 1697-8 was the translator's Club, which became transformed into the Kit-Cat.

11. “Dryden was buried by the Bishop of Rochester at the Abbey on Monday … the Kit-Cat Club were at the charge of his funeral which was not great … Mr Montague had engaged to build him a fine monument”—Letter of Edward Hinton at Westminster to his cousin, the Rev. John Cooper, dated 14 May 1700 (See Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. V, Appdx. pp. 333, 359-60).

12. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. II, Appdx., p. 70.

13. Cf. The funeral expenses of Jacob Tonson junior, viz. £124 5s. 9d. (Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. II, Appdx., p. 71).

14. A Description of Mr D———N's Funeral. A poem. MDCC.

15. The Patentee, or some reflections in verse on Mr R's forgetting the design of His Majesty's Bear Garden, etc., 1700. (The poem satirised the mercenary motives of the lessee of Dorset Garden Theatre who, forgetting the honour due to Dryden, let out the hall for bear-baiting on the poet's day of funeral.)

16. 36″ × 28″.

17. In a letter to Tonson, dated 20 August 1695, Congreve requested him to ask Kneller to finish the picture. It was this portrait that Henrietta, the second Duchess of Marlborough, requested Jacob junior to exchange for another:

    I know 'tis only the sett off those pictures that your uncle values and not yt I would give the world for. Therefore sure except 'tis purely out off ill-nature and having no respect for that Picture he would change with me for an originall one off Sir Godfrey Kneller just the same size off the Kitt-Cat ones. I wish this was in your power. I am Sir your Humble servant.

    Novem. ye 29, 1729.

    Marlborough

18. Amongst the letters from R. Rowys to Prior is one of 14 July 1698, saying: “Mr. Godfrey Kneller has drawn at length the picture of your friend Jacob Tonson which he showed Mr. Dryden, who desired to give a touch of his pencil, and underneath it writ these verses:

    With leering look, bull-faced and freckled fair,
    With frowsy pores, poisoning the ambient air,
    With two left leggs and Judas coloured hair …

    (Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. II, MSS. of the Marquis of Bath, Vol. xxviii.)

19. The Secret History, op cit.

20. Shadwell, Thomas, The Medall of John Bayes (1682). Malone repudiated the suggestion that Dryden was a literary drudge under Herringman; but the poet did indenture himself to work for Tonson under conditions undoubtedly more profitable and honourable than he had known elsewhere.

21. Writing on 8 June 1695, Dryden says: “No matter for any dinner, for that is charge to you, and I care not for it. Mr. Congreve may be with us as a common friend. …” (See Malone, Dryden's Prose Works, op. cit., i, pt. 2.)

22. Ward, op. cit., p. 360.

23. 1700.

    Francesca Claremont in her Catherine of Aragon (Hall, 15s., 1939), “… dwells affectionately on the surviving legacies of Catherine's personality—the lace industry of Buckinghamshire, which was learnt from her, the numerous Cat-and-Fiddle Inns which perhaps commemorate the sufferings of Cathryn la Fidele. …” The Times Library Supplement, Saturday, 30 December 1939.

24. Amongst Pope's Poems is printed the following epigram, which Malone believed must have been by Arbuthnot:

    Whence deathless Kit-Cat took its name,
              Few Criticks can unriddle;
    Some say from Pastry Cook it came,
              And some from Cat and Fiddle.
    From no trim Beau's its Name it boasts,
              Gray Statesman, or green Wits;
    But from this Pell-mell Pack of Toasts,
              of old Cats and young Kits.

25. In 1699, Elkanah Settle addressed a manuscript poem to “The Most noble order of the Toast”.

26. Tonson printed many of the poetical toasts in honour of the reining beauties in his fifth Miscellany of poems. Amongst the gallant contributors were Garth, Addison, Maynwaring and the Earls of Halifax, Dorset, Wharton and others. The ladies toasted by the Kit-Cat included Lady Carlisle, Lady Essex, Lady Hyde, Lady Wharton, the Duchesses of St Albans, Beaufort and Richmond, Mademoiselle Spanheime and Lady Sunderland.

27. D.N.B.

28. The letters and works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1861), 1-52-3.

29. Louis Melville's book, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Her Life and Letters (1925), carries a frontispiece in colours by Aubrey Hammond depicting Lady Mary (aged eight) at the Kit-Cat Club.

30. It is reported that Christopher Catt himself took over the Fountain. A composite painting of some of the members of the Kit-Cat Club, ascribed to Sir Godfrey, and the property of Baroness Windsor, was lent to the Exhibition of National Portraits at Kensington (1867). It was described as a “Scene in Christopher Cat's house, Chelsea Walk; Steele, Lord Orford, Addison and his step-son little Lord Warwick, Sir Godfrey Kneller at Tea.” Either there was some mistake in the description, or the scene referred to the interval between Catt's leaving Shire Lane and occupying the Fountain (See Notes and Queries, v series, 27 March 1875, p. 259).

31. Blackmore: op. cit.

32. Jacob junior, in his will, also adopted the spelling “Kitt-Catt”, but “Kit-Cat” was the more popular form.

33. Gent. Mag. New series, p. 373.

34. The Weekly Pacquet of 9 July 1720, reported: “This week Tonson, the bookseller, gave a splendid entertainment at Barn Elms to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle, Lord Landsdown, and other persons of distinction.”

35. Blackmore, op. cit.

36. Baker MSS.

37. Brewer, History of London and Middlesex.

38. Baker MSS., op. cit.

39. Anecdotes (ed. by Singer, 1886), p. 4.

40. Spence, op. cit., p. 4.

41. In imitation of Horace, Lib. III, ode, ix (1714).

42. On 9 December 1692, Lord Mohun and Captain Hill murdered the actor William Mountfort in Norfolk Street, Strand.

43. Anecdotes, op. cit.

44. See Private Correspondence of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (1838).

45. Ibid., p. 272.

46. Member for Sandwich.

47. Hist. MSS. Comm., Rep. XIII, Appdx. ii, p. 209.

48. Writing to Tonson in September 1684, Dryden accepted his suggestion that the Religio Laici published in 1682 should not be re-published in the second Miscellany. “Your opinion of the Miscellanies is likewise mine. … But I must also add that we are to have nothing but good whomever we disoblige.” (Reprint by Malone, op. cit.)

49. See Cushing, Harvey, Dr. Garth; The Kit-Cat Poet, Baltimore, 1906.

50. Faction Display'd. A Poem, 1704, p. 15.

51. The Kit-Cats. A Poem, 1708.

52. The Kit-Cat C——b Described, 1705.

53. The roof being too high, and the stage and seats indifferently placed, the theatre proved an acoustic failure, and it was soon deserted by the eminent actors that came to act in it. The theatrical venture proved, as far as Vanbrugh was concerned a financial failure. He wrote to Tonson on 29 November 1719: “I have been many years at hard labour to work through the cruel difficultys that Haymarket undertaking involved me in notwithstanding the aid of a large subscription, nor are those difficulties quite at an end yet.”

54. The Queen announced that “Whereas we have thought it fit for the better reforming the Abuses and Immorality of the Stage that a new company of Comedians should be established for our service under stricter Government and Regulations than have been formerly; We therefore reposing our especiall trust and confidence in our Trusty well-beloved John Vanbrugh and Willm. Congreve Esq., for the due execution of this our will do give and grant etc.”

55. 5 May 1705.

56. For a discussion of some of these allusions, see Allen, op. cit.

57. Autobiography (1740), p. 237-358. (Mr Bonamy Dobrée doubts the veracity of the “Little Whig” story, while Mr Allen accepting it suggests, as if in support, that Marlborough her father, was a member of the Club. But we know definitely that Marlborough was not admitted until 11 years later).

58. 9 April 1705.

59. See Brown, Tom, Works, 1707-8, iii, 41. The first edition (1700) had no mention of Kit-Cat. Evidently, the Club had not asserted itself before Dryden's funeral.

60. The London Gazette, 18 January 1711, contained the following advertisement: “Lost on Monday 8th inst., at the Theatre in the Haymarket, a Gold Watch made by Tompion, with Gold chain and an amethyst seal. Whoever brings it to Jacob Tonson in the Strand shall have 5 Guineas Reward and no questions asked.”

61. The Kit-Cat C——b Described, op. cit.

62. Changed from King's Arms in honour of Queen Anne.

63. e.g. The Daily Courant, 17 January 1705; 5 March 1707, 28 February 1708—The London Gazette 6 January 1711; The Spectator, 26 February 1712.

64. T.C., November 1708; February 1709; May-June 1709.

65. Anecdotes, op. cit.

66. 22 June 1703. There is a letter from Abraham Stanyan to the Earl of Manchester on the subject of Broccard's salary and announcing that Mr Montague would write to him by Lord Kingston, whom “several knights and Kitt-Catters” attended to his yacht. (Histl. MSS. Comm., Report 8, Appdx. II, p. 75.) Jacob Tonson junior, in his will when referring to the Club, spells it “Kitt-Catt”; so does Vanbrugh in one of his letters.

67. Gent. Mag, 1837.

68. Lord Wharton lived for 12 more years.

69. The arms of the subscribers were engraved on the illustrations to the Caesar's Commentaries (1712). The blocks were all made abroad.

70. It was even suggested that Tonson, a civilian, returned from Holland in a British naval vessel, thanks to official patronage.

71. Gent. Mag., July 1836, p. 27.

72. Longleat MSS., iii, 393. (See Bickley, Francis: Life of Mathew Prior, pp. 109-110.)

73. Private Correspondence of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, op. cit., II, 138.

74. Prior was then secretary to Lord Dursley (afterwards Earl of Berkeley). Ambassador to the Hague.

75. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep., II Appdx., p. 71—also Gent. Mag., No. 1834.

76. See p. 109.

77. See The History of His Own Time. “Compiled from the original manuscripts of His Excellency Mathew Prior Esq. Revised & Signed by Himself, & copies fair for the Press by Mr. Adrian Drift, His Executor … London MDCCXL, p. 318 et. seq.

78. The History of His Own, op. cit., p. 337.

79. J.Y. in Notes & Queries, 2nd series, vol. III, 14 March 1857, p. 205.

80. See postscript to the letter in Add. 28275.

81. Pope said: “Sir Godfrey was very courteous, but then he was very vain, and a great glutton; so he (Tonson) played base passions against the other; besides telling him that he was the greatest master that ever was, sending him every now and then, a haunch of Venison, and dozens of excellent Claret. 'D, my —— man (said he once to Vander Gucht) that old Jacob loves me; he is a very good man; he sends me good things; the Venison was fat—(Spence, Anecdotes.)

82. The portraits have since reached the National Portrait Gallery, London.

83. See pp. 77-78, Croxall's letter.

84. The actual Kit-Cat collection still all together, comprises 42 paintings, including one double portrait, and a small-scale portrait of Kneller himself, making 44 portraits in all. The portrait of the Earl of Huntingdon appears to have not been completed and it disappeared some time after 1735. Those of the Earl of Burlington, the Duke of Marlborough and Edward Hopkins seem not to have belonged to the Tonsons. The engraving of D'Artiquenave was probably taken from the larger 1702 original. See Piper, David: Catalogue of the Seventeenth Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, C.U.P., 1963, pp. 398-403.

85. Eleven opinions about Mr H(arley); with Observations (1711), p. 89.

86. Hist. MSS. Comm. Rep. III, Appdx., p. 198.

87. “The Beafsteak and October Clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking if we may form a judgment of them from their respective titles”—The Spectator, No. 9.

References

Allen, Robert J. The Clubs of Augustan London (London, 1933).

Anonymous. A Kit-Cat C—b Described. (London, 1705).

Blackmore, R. The Kit-Cat—A Poem (London, 1708).

Brown, Tom. Amusements Serious and Comical (London, 1702).

Cibber, Colley. An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian (London, 1740).

Dobree, Bonamy. Essays in Biography (London, 1925).

Malone, Edmund. The Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works of John Dryden (London, 1800).

Spence, Joseph. Anecdotes, Observations and Characters of Books and Men (London, 1820).

Ward, Edward. The Secret History of Clubs (London, 1709).

Manuscripts

1. Baker Mss. Collection. Baker MSS. relating to the Tonsons and the Kit-Cat Club in the possession of Mr H. Clinton-Baker, Bayfordbury, Herts.