[In the following excerpt, Hodges discusses the importance of the Kit-Cat Club to William Congreve, noting that many of the playwright's close relationships with other members endured throughout his life.]

I

When Congreve was not at home in the Strand, he was frequently to be found at the country seat of a fellow Kit-Cat.

“The Kit-cat Club, generally mentioned as a set of wits, [were] in reality the patriots that saved Britain.”¹ When Horace Walpole wrote this, he was thinking of the long, persistent fight made by his distinquished father and other members of the club for the principles of the Revolution of 1688. Throughout the reign of Queen Anne, while the Tory ministry vacillated between the House of Hanover and the Pretender at Saint-Germain, the Kit-Cats thought only of the Protestant succession. The Tory Bolingbroke was secretly planning to bring back the Pretender on the death of the Queen. One of his lieutenants he put in charge of strategic English ports; another he placed over Scotland. The political leaders among the Kit-Cats, all of them staunch Whigs, had for four years been shut out of the government. But as Queen Anne lay dying, the Duke of Somerset, the most august member of the club, entered the Privy Council without summons and made possible the proclamation of George I. Once the populace had begun to shout “Long live King George!” it was too late for a minority to force the Pretender James on the English nation.

If the Kit-Cat Club had been only a political organization, we might dismiss it promptly. But it was also “a set of wits.” Even during the period of its greatest political activity, the club enjoyed prestige chiefly for its interest in belles-lettres. Before it opened its doors to the great Whig nobles, it was a modest group of young but promising poets meeting weekly with Jacob Tonson. At that time the little group had no name, and yet it was already “an assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions,” and thus, according to the Great Lexicographer's own definition, worthy to be called a club.

Although some details in the long history of the Kit-Cat Club may be obscure, on one matter there is entire agreement: Jacob Tonson founded it and dominated it throughout its activity. In its heyday, in the summer of 1703, Tonson spent a few months in Amsterdam and the Kit-Cats discontinued meetings in his absence. On 22 June 1703 the Duke of Somerset wrote to him: “Our club is dissolved till you revive it again, which we are impatient of.”² During the following month Vanbrugh wrote to Tonson: “… the Kit Catt too, will never meet without you, so you see here's a generall Stagnation for want of you.”³ Further evidence of Tonson's prominence appears in Sir Richard Blackmore's The Kit-Cats, published in 1708.

Do thou, great Bocai [Jacob] smooth thy spacious Brow,
And one kind Smile on my Attempt bestow:
For thou, whose fertile Genius does abound
With noble Projects, didst this Order found.
And still dost cherish, cultivate and guide
Thy humble Creature and with decent Pride
Dost, like the God of Wine, the Kit-Cat state bestride.
Gracious appear, as when thou mount's thy Seat
High in the great Assembly, to create
Some Peer a Member of the Kit-Cat-State.

Much has been made of the fact that Tonson, a mere tradesman and the son of a barber-surgeon in Holborn, should have presided over the most distinguished club of the age, composed largely of dukes and earls and men of genius. But Tonson was no ordinary book-seller. He was quick to see that the great epic which Milton had sold for a pittance might be made the basis of a fortune. He purchased, first, one half of the copyright, and then, when his finances permitted, the whole. He showed his pride in the masterpiece—and his gratitude for the wealth it had brought him—by sitting for his Kit-Cat portrait with a large volume of Paradise Lost in his right hand.

Tonson must have been a pleasant companion. Pope, who was not noted for saying many kind things about publishers, called him “genial Jacob.”⁴ Sometimes his shrewdness and his desire to drive a good bargain angered one or another of the poets. Dryden, extremely irritated, is said to have sent the bookseller a satirical pen picture in which his likeness is drawn:

With leering-look, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowsy pores, that taint the ambient air.

“Tell the dog,” said Dryden to his messenger, “that he who wrote these can write more.”⁵ Tonson showed his astuteness by hastening to pacify the angry poet.

But with all his geniality and astuteness, Tonson could hardly have become an intimate of so many great noblemen if he had not first built around himself a group of such literary distinction that the nobles felt themselves honored by being admitted. During the reign of King William, we are told, war was too much in the sovereign's thoughts to permit any attention to the poets. So Tonson made them his “tender Care”:

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

Once each week he dined the poets: “Their Drink was gen'rous Wine, and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat.” The members of the group were carefully selected—“Tho' not of Title, Men of Sense and Wit.”⁶ Ned Ward, speaking more satirically, calls the early members of the club “a parcel of poetical young springs that had just weaned themselves of their mother university.”⁷ But he does add that “every week the listening town was charmed with some wonderful offspring of their teeming noddles, and the fame of the Kit-Cat began to extend itself to the utmost limits of our learned metropolis.” Finally their reputation became so great “that many of the quality grew fond of sharing the everlasting honour that was likely to crown the poetical society.”

The period of this rising fame, when many applied to founder Tonson for admission and when “Men of Title did his Leve wait,” must have been near the turn of the century. Congreve had become one of the group at a much earlier period, when he was, indeed, something of a “poetical young sprig” fresh from the university. As early as 1693 a close intimacy had grown up between the young dramatist and his thirty-seven-year-old publisher. When Congreve went away to Tunbridge Wells in the summer of that year, he looked to Tonson as a medium for forwarding letters to Ireland and getting his own parcels sent down from London. His cordial letters written to Tonson in August, 1693, conclude with “your affectionate friend” or “your most affectionate friend,”—in striking contrast with the “most obedient humble servant” that ordinarily closes his letters.

Nicholas Rowe has delightfully revealed in an imaginary conversation the intimacy between the two men.⁸ Tonson's query,

While at my House in Fleet-street once you lay,
How merrily, dear Sir, Time pass'd away?

brings from Congreve the hearty response:

Thou, Jacob Tonson, wert, to my conceiving,
The chearfullest, best, honest Fellow living.

Congreve was very much at home among the Kit-Cats. To many of the members he was bound by family ties or mutual interests. The Earl of Burlington owned the Irish estates formerly managed by Congreve's father. Other family contacts were with the young Earl of Huntingdon, half-brother of Congreve's cousin, and with Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston, whose grandfather had stood sponsor at the baptism of Congreve's father. Most vital of all were the personal intimacies with literary members—Steele, Walsh, Garth, Addison, and Vanbrugh. Among these Congreve was, at the turn of the century, easily the most distinguished, and served as a kind of poet laureate for the principles of the Revolution. He celebrated with odes and ballads the significant events in the reigns of William and Anne. He sang the praises of William as warrior and peacemaker. He glorified the victories of Marlborough and other Kit-Cat leaders.

The Kit-Cats met with Tonson at various places. Some of the early meetings were in Sheer Lane at the shop of Christopher (“Kit”) Cat, who made a mutton pie much to the satisfaction of the group. Indeed the name of this pastry cook is said to have suggested the name adopted by the club. When he moved to the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, a little to the west of Somerset House, the group followed him there for their weekly meetings. Sometimes, especially in the summer, the club assembled at the Upper Flask Tavern on Hampstead Heath. Beginning in 1703, when Tonson took a house a few miles up the Thames at Barn Elms, the club frequently met there. As late as 1725 Vanbrugh still remembered “the first Supper in the Kitchen at Barns”⁹—the best meal that he had ever eaten.

Tonson spent the summer of 1703 in Amsterdam on business while his new house was being made ready. In the meantime the Kit-Cats were eager to resume the meetings of their group. Congreve wrote to Tonson and urged his speedy return:

London July 1^st: 1703

Dear M^r Tonson

My having been at the Bathe prevented my receiving your letter so soone as I should have don, had I been in town, & I was in hopes you would have been here before, but by your staying so much longer I hope you will doe your businesse effectually. I shewd your letter to my Lord Halifax & desired [h]im to do you right to S^r Harry Furnes. I hope the weather will continue fair for y^r. return since it is changed so much for the better. I thank you for the care & trouble you have taken about my linnen I could wish for halfe a dozen a degree coarser if y^r: time & leisure permits you. Your nephew told me of Copies that were dispersed of the Pastoral & likely to be printed so we have thought fit to prevent 'em & print it our selves. I believe barn-elms wants you & I long to see it but dont care to satisfie my curiosity before you come. My humble service to M^r: Addison I am

Y^rs: most faithfull

& affectionately Willm: Congreve¹⁰

It was already planned that each member of the club should present his picture to Tonson at his new home. To this plan Vanbrugh referred in writing to Tonson on June 15, 1703:

In short, the Kit-Cat wants you, much more than you ever can do them. Those who remain in towne, are in great desire of waiting on you at Barne-Elmes; not that they have finished their pictures neither; tho' to excuse them (as well as myself), Sr Godfrey has been most in fault. The fool has got a country house near Hampton Court, and is so busy about fitting it up (to receive nobody), that there is no getting him to work.

Congreve was one of those not ready with his picture. It was not painted till 1709, and many were finished even later. All told, forty-eight portraits were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself a Kit-Cat, and were hung in a room specially prepared for them at Barn Elms. This highly ornamented room, twenty feet wide and forty feet long, had walls high enough—eighteen feet—to accommodate the pictures in two rows around the room. Congreve's hung in the lower row, between portraits of Vanbrugh and Addison.

Each portrait, twenty-eight inches by thirty-six inches, was slightly less than a half length but large enough to show one hand. Sir Godfrey was passionately fond of painting hands. He painted his own portrait for the club with hand raised and index finger pointing, in much the same position that he used for Congreve. Since Congreve posed for no other portrait in such an unnatural posture, we may reasonably hold Kneller to blame in this instance. It is hard to believe that any normal person would have chosen to have his picture painted with this affected lift of the hand.

Fourteen years after presenting his portrait at Barn Elms, Congreve had occasion to write Tonson as follows:

Dear Mr. Tonson

My Kinsman Coll Congreve desires by me that you would do him the favour to lend him my picture to have a copy taken of it, I am sure there will be great care taken of it. I am sorry I am not in town now you are to have the pleasure of seeing you. I hope you are well. I am with unalterable esteem & friendship Dear Jacob

Aug 8^th 1723

Ever Yrs

W^m Congreve¹¹

II

Congreve's party loyalty finally received its reward when his Kit-Cat friends firmly established themselves at the time of the Hanoverian succession. King George I arrived in London in the fall of 1714, and at the end of the year Congreve received, in place of his “little office,” a commission as Secretary to the Island of Jamaica. The Whigs were now so firmly entrenched that Congreve had no further cause to fear the loss of office, though his post was subject to the pleasure of the crown. But to make him more secure, his friends obtained, about four years later, a royal patent confirming his appointment “for and during his natural life.”¹²

Even if his health had permitted, Congreve would have desired no seat in Parliament, no active place in the government. His ambition did not lead him that way. Since he wanted to be free of business affairs so far as possible, the secretaryship of distant Jamaica was an almost ideal appointment. A special warrant signed by the Secretary of State permitted him to conduct the office by deputy. So long as all went smoothly in Jamaica, Congreve needed to do little more than give his receipt for his share of the yearly fees, which amounted to more than seven hundred pounds. Although this was only a third of the salary enjoyed by Addison as Secretary to Ireland, it was about four times as much as Congreve had ever before received from government office. This made little difference in his frugal way of living, but it made a big change in his financial condition. He now began to build up a little estate by the purchase of South Sea stock¹³ and four per cent annuities of the Bank of England.

Until this time Congreve had been in no condition to make investments. The leanness of his earlier years is evidenced by his diminutive checking account with Messrs Hoare and Company, one of the several goldsmiths keeping “running cashes” in the vicinity of Temple Bar:

After 1715 Congreve began making sizable transactions through the Bank of England:

At the time of his death Congreve had three thousand pounds in the Bank of England and other securities valued at about seven thousand pounds.

On the whole Congreve's administration of the Jamaica secretaryship was uneventful. On one occasion, however, the political bickerings in the little island were brought home to London. Governor Archibald Hamilton was dominating the Council of Jamaica but was bitterly opposed by the Assembly. Congreve made the mistake of selecting as his deputy Samuel Page, an ardent partisan of the Assembly. The Governor protested the nomination, but found that Congreve, for all his apparent mildness of spirit, would stand firmly behind the man to whom he had promised the office. Congreve won out in the controversy before the Board of Trade, and Page was installed as the Secretary's deputy. After a few months the Governor induced the Council to remove Page on the ground of incompetency. Almost immediately the Assembly came to his defense and brought in a report commending the deputy for his “great exactness” and general efficiency. The hostility between Governor and Assembly culminated the following month in Page's secret departure for London as a representative from the Assembly to lay before the Board of Trade charges that Hamilton was conspiring with the Spaniards. The Governor was arrested and brought to England, where he set about defending himself and also planning revenge on Samuel Page. Soon the Board “ordered that a letter be writ to Mr. Congreve, Secretary of Jamaica, acquainting him with their lordships desire to speak with him on Wednesday next, upon several complaints that have been made to them against Mr. Page, his deputy.” Congreve replied to the secretary of the Board in the following letter:¹⁶

Ashley October ye 6th. 1717

Sr.

After a Fitt of Illness of two Month's continuance, I am but just gott into ye Country for the recovery of my health, and am altogether unable to wait upon the Lords Comrs. as you signify to me they desire I shou'd doe.

I beg ye favour of you to acquaint them of this from me with all due respects to their Lps.

And if you please you may also intimate to their Lps. that I have already given Satisfaction to both the Principal Secretarys of State in what relates to me concerning Mr. Page. I am,

Sr.

Your most humble servt.

Wm Congreve

Even during his sickness Congreve had not failed to speak in behalf of his deputy. His efforts, however, were of no avail in the face of Hamilton's continued opposition, and a few months later Page was finally dismissed. Congreve next exerted himself to secure for his late deputy the proper income for his services, and submitted to the Privy Council “the humble petition of William Congreve Esqr. Secretary of the Island of Jamaica, on the behalf of himself and Samuel Page.”¹⁷ The petition was altogether unnecessary to insure Congreve's personal income from the office: the Governor had been careful to take “such Care that the Interest of Mr. Congreve the Patentee shall in no way suffer.” But the Governor had tried to divert from Page some of the income that should have been his as deputy. Congreve's lawyer had won the case for Page in Jamaica, and now Congreve did what he could to prevent any miscarriage in London.

III

As Congreve grew older and lost taste for the bustling life at court and coffeehouse, he turned for his social contacts to a few old and tried friends, chiefly to persons with whom he had been associated in the Kit-Cat Club. He went out to dine with them at their homes or at taverns, and he sat too long over the heavy food and the good wine. While still in his thirties, he had to admit to Keally, “I am grown fat … puzzled to buckle my shoe.”¹⁸ He continued to struggle against the tendency toward corpulence and was displeased when one painter drew him as somewhat more “chuffy” than his figure justified.

As a means of keeping his weight within bounds and of combating his tendency to gout, Congreve drank the bottled mineral water available at the coffeehouses. His account for “Spaw water” is still preserved in the original ledger kept by Tom Twining at his coffeehouse in Devereux Court, the Strand. …

Freedom from set duties gave Congreve opportunity to spend part of his summers in easy retirement with his friends and patrons. He must have been a welcome guest at Bushy Park, seat of Lord Halifax, near Hampton Court. One summer, at least, he spent in the country with the Duke of Montagu. To no place, however, did he go with more satisfaction than to Stowe, Buckinghamshire, home of Sir Richard Temple, the “Dear Dick” to whom Congreve addressed one of his translations and to whom he sent two of his poetic letters. After Congreve's death Temple erected in his gardens at Stowe a monument to commemorate the “elegant, polished Wit” of Congreve the dramatist and the “candid, most unaffected Manners” of Congreve his friend.¹⁹

In the autumn of 1717 Congreve slipped away from London to recuperate from an illness at Ashley, the seat of Richard Boyle, Viscount Shannon, another Kit-Cat friend. Ashley was near Walton-upon-Thames only a few miles beyond Pope's villa in Twickenham. Two years later, Congreve was again at Ashley. He was still in poor health, and his eyes were so weak that he had to appeal to Lord Shannon to write this short letter to Pope:

Ashley thursday [1719]

Sr.

By candle light Mr. Congreve wants a Scribe, he has not been well indeed, but will take the air your way to morrow morning. Don't let this be any restraint on you, for he is not Qualified for long visits. Since you were so kind to mention me in your letter, I hope you'l keep your promiss, and let me have the pleasure of seeing you here what day is most Convenient for you next weeke, and it will be a very great satisfaction to S^r.

Yo^r most humble

Se^t

Shannon²⁰

Congreve's eyes had been troubling him for years. On 26 October 1710 Swift found Congreve at his lodgings in Surrey Street nearly blind with cataracts which could be removed only after several years of waiting. During 1712 he was under the treatment of a French oculist,²¹ and perhaps the cataracts were removed at that time. His eyes continued to cause trouble for a number of years, if not till the end of his life. But Congreve did not become blind, as some have supposed. Many documents written in his own hand have been preserved for the period from 1710 till 1727; and it should be added that letters written in 1726 and 1727 indicate that Congreve's vision was then clearer than it had been ten years earlier.

However blind and gouty Congreve became, he did not let his physical condition sour his spirits. In 1710 Swift was amazed to find him, in the midst of his afflictions, “as cheerful as ever.” Swift returned again and again to sit for hours with Congreve and afterwards to report to Stella that he had been “to see Will. Congreve, who is a very agreeable companion.”²² In 1723 Gay wrote Swift that Congreve was still laboring “under the same afflictions, as to his sight and gout” but had “not lost anything of his cheerful temper.”²³ These reports are in keeping with the story that when Congreve lay on his death bed he was worried lest anyone be inconvenienced. Congreve had certain rare qualities which made him, invalid though he was, a welcome visitor at Ashley and other country seats of the Kit-Cats.

After returning to London from Ashley in the fall of 1719, Congreve was asked by a fellow Kit-Cat, the young Duke of Newcastle, to pass judgment upon Thomas Southerne's tragedy, The Spartan Dame. As Lord Chamberlain, entrusted with the censorship of the stage, the Duke wished to know whether the production of Southerne's play, which had been banned from the stage many years before because of some supposed political implications, could now be safely permitted. He turned to Congreve as a good critic and safe party man. No doubt Congreve was glad to have an opportunity to repay the kindness of Southerne nearly thirty years before in helping with the staging of The Old Bachelor. On Congreve's recommendation²⁴ the Lord Chamberlain authorized the performance of The Spartan Dame, and Southerne is said to have realized from the play the neat sum of five hundred pounds.

IV

There was something disarming about Congreve's frankness and honesty, something contagious about his generosity. He had the art of getting along with people. Crusty old John Dennis quarreled with almost everybody, but not with Congreve. At one time Congreve was even able to bring about a truce between Dennis and his bitterest enemy, Pope. For Congreve, Pope had a deep and sincere friendship that had begun many years before, when Pope, a youngster in his 'teens, timidly brought out his pastorals. Congreve had been one of the first to commend them to Tonson, and Pope never forgot that Congreve had “loved” his early poems. When Pope was getting subscriptions for his Iliad, he knew that the list of subscribers was being materially increased by Congreve's quiet, persistent influence among his many titled friends. Pope was duly appreciative. He expressed that appreciation in a fine way by dedicating to Congreve the translation of the Iliad.

Pope's decision to inscribe his work to Congreve was not made hastily as the final volume was going to press. Pope had made up his mind at least as early as 1719, when he jotted down in his manuscript: “End the notes with a dedication to Mr. Congreve, as a memorial of our friendship occasioned by his translation of this last part of Homer.” He also made a point of incorporating two of Congreve's lines in his translation and of calling attention to them in a note.

As soon as the first volume of the Iliad was ready for publication, Pope made sure that Congreve received his copy well in advance of the regular subscribers. The Post Boy for Tuesday, 31 May 1715, announced that “the Subscribers for Mr. Pope's Translation of Homer” might get the first volume “on Monday the 6th Day of June next” from the publisher Bernard Lintott. Congreve's holographic receipt for his copy, five days in advance, is still preserved:

                                                                                                    June 1st 1715
Received of Mr. Lintott the first volume
of Mr. Popes translation of Homer
                                                                                          by me Wm Congreve(25)

Jealous and suspicious though Pope often was, he never doubted Congreve. Except for Swift and Gay, Congreve was perhaps Pope's most intimate literary friend. After Congreve's death Pope made, in his list of departed friends, this note for Congreve: “poeta, eximius, vir comis, urbanus, et mihi perquam familiaris.” “Exceedingly intimate with me”—he could hardly have been more emphatic. It is no wonder that in writing to the Earl of Oxford, Pope should stress his “long twenty years' friendship” with Congreve and say feelingly of his death, “It … struck me through.”²⁶

Congreve's amiable disposition kept him almost free from legal entanglements. He never took a case to law. Once, however, in his last years he was unwillingly involved in a suit that irked him exceedingly. It was the famous suit begun as early as 1698 by the Duke of Hamilton to secure certain moneys which he considered due from the estate of his late father-in-law, Lord Gerrard. The long-continued case led to the fatal duel between the Duke and the notorious Lord Mohun. Lady Mohun, against whom the Duchess of Hamilton now brought suit, managed by various legal devices to postpone the decision from year to year. Before her death in June, 1725, she executed a deed of limitation, putting all her possessions in the hands of the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Ilay, William Congreve, Moses Beranger, Charles Mordaunt, or any one of these. Congreve found himself defendant in a case involving fifteen thousand pounds. Nine months later, on 14 May 1726, he filed “The severall answer of William Congreve Esquire … to the Bill of Complaint of the most noble Elizabeth Duchess of Hamilton,” in which he swore that he was “an absolute stranger” to the whole affair, that he had been appointed trustee without his knowledge or consent, that he had never acted as trustee or possessed himself of any part of the estate. Finally, he prayed the court that he be “dismissed with his reasonable costs and charges.”²⁷ And thus ended Congreve's first and last day in court.

In the same year the aging Congreve had another experience that disturbed his well-loved ease and quiet as much as the suit in chancery. Congreve had consistently avoided the attentions of his admirers. In the first flush of his reputation as a writer he had slipped into and out of town to get away from publicity. As he grew older this hero-worship harassed him. He preferred to stay away from court and coffeehouse. He did not consider it modest to talk of his “great” plays, the plays that he had written a quarter of a century before. All his life he had spoken of them as “poor trifles” or “homely fare.”²⁸ So when the brilliant young Frenchman, Voltaire, heaped profuse flattery upon the old dramatist, he was genuinely embarrassed. Illnesses and the daily struggles of life had in some measure sapped Congreve's urbanity, and he may have sounded curt when he asked to be visited “upon no other Foot than that of a Gentleman, who led a Life of Plainness and Simplicity.” Voltaire, not knowing his man, chose to mistake genuine humility for snobbery and said openly that he “was very much disgusted at so unseasonable a Piece of Vanity.”²⁹ No other contemporary pronounced Congreve vain. To Dryden, Pope, Swift, Steele, Gay, and others most closely associated with him, Congreve was known for his “modesty,” his “sweetness” of temper, his “Aequanimity, candour and Benevolence,” his humility “in the height of envy'd honors,” his helpfulness, his frankness and sincerity.³⁰ But posterity was to be perverse enough to ignore the unanimous estimate of those who lived with Congreve and knew him best, and to accept as final the impression of a passing foreigner.

Notes

1. Anecdotes of Painting in England (London, 1849), II, 591. For a brief history of the Kit-Cat Club and reproductions of the portraits of the forty-eight members with biographical sketches see Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Composing the Kit-Cat Club (London, 1821).

2. Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons Composing the Kit-Cat Club, p. vi.

3. The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, ed. Dobrée and Webb (London, 1927-28), IV, 8.

4. The Dunciad (1728), Book, I, 1. 45.

5. See Memoirs of the Famous Persons Composing the Kit-Cat Club, pp. 236, 237.

6. See Blackmore's The Kit-Cats.

7. Secret History of Clubs, as quoted by the Memoirs, pp. 240-245.

8. Rowe's poem, entitled “The Reconcilement between Jacob Tonson and Mr. Congreve. An Imitation of Horace, Book III, Ode IX,” was apparently first published in The Muses Mercury, March, 1707. The title suggests more estrangement between the two men than the poem itself.

9. Works, ed. Dobrée and Webb, IV, 167.

10. Congreve's original halographic letter to Tonson, dated July 1, 1703, is preserved by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Sir Edmund Gosse, Life of William Congreve (London), 1888, p. 154, quoted one sentence from this letter, which was evidently then among the Tonson manuscripts at Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire. The letter is here printed for the first time.

11. Printed for the first time by kind permission of H. W. Clinton-Baker, Esq., from the original manuscript at Bayfordbury, Hertfordshire.

12. See Patent Roll No. 3525, 4 George I, Part V, No. 6. A copy of Congreve's commission as Secretary of Jamaica, filling three closely written pages, is preserved in the Original Correspondence of the Board of Trade, C. O. 137, 12, No. 69. This secretaryship was the only lucrative government post ever held by Congreve. On 3 November 1714 he was granted a minor sinecure as one of the five undersearchers of the customs in the port of London (Treasury Out Letters, Customs and Excise, T. 11. 16, p. 167). This position was apparently the one to which Southerne referred as “a Patent place in the Customs of 600 Pds per ann.” The Public Records, however, show repeatedly that the salary for an undersearcher of the customs was only £12 annually. The salary is stated very precisely in a special report (T. 42. 2) made by the Commissioners of the Customs entitled “A List of all the Officers Employed in the Customs with the Salaries and Allowances they Respectively receive, distinguishing therein such as are paid out of Incidents from those that are placed upon the Establishment or paid by Dormant Warrant as they stood at Michaelmas 1717.” The commissioners received yearly salaries of £1,000, the chief searcher £120, and the undersearchers £12 each. On p. 17 of the report Congreve is listed as one of the undersearchers with a yearly salary of £12 paid by dormant warrant, with no annual allowance by incidents. Each of the undersearchers was allowed a deputy at £60 annually. This difference in salary in favor of the deputy may be explained as a necessary living wage for the man giving his full time to the work, whereas the position as undersearcher was only a minor sinecure. The great difference, however, is remarkable; and it is possible, in spite of the seemingly clear evidence in the Records, that the undersearchers had an income not indicated.

13. One of Congreve's purchases of stock is recorded in the following note preserved at the Baker Library, Harvard School of Business Administration:

    The 14th August 1716

    Mr. Grigsby

    Sr.

    I desire you to let Mr. Moses Beranger accept for me and in my name Two hundred fifty eight pounds South Sea Stock W^ch. he will transferr himself

    Wm. Congreve

    Another note to Mr. Grigsby thirty days later (Harvard Theatre Collection, Widener Library) shows that Congreve then had a total of seven hundred pounds in South Sea Stock:

    Surrey Street 13 Sep: 1716

    Sr.

    Pay to Mr Tho Snow the Dividend on Seven Hundred pounds being all my stock in the South Sea Comp^a. books for two Half years of 3 li pct. each due Mid^r. last and Xmas next this shall be your Sufficient Warrant

    To Mr. Grigsby

    Wm Congreve

    Next spring Congreve sold fifteen hundred pounds of South Sea Stock (see his signed authorization for the transfer, Bodleian MS. 25,427). Congreve's holdings in 1721 are shown by the following note preserved at the Wellesley College Library:

    15 Feb. 1721

    Sr.

    Pray pay my Dividend due at Xmas last past on Two Thousand Five hundred pounds South Sea Stock unto Mr. Thomas Snow whose receipt shall be your discharge £2500

    To Mr. Cha: Lockyer.

    at the South Sea House.

    Wm Congreve.

14. From Ledger 7, ff. 169 V, 170 and Ledger 9, ff. 17 V, 18. Other entries, somewhat larger, occur in Ledgers 16 (for 1712) and 25 (for 1723). For permission to examine the original records of Congreve's checking account I am indebted to the courtesy of the officials of Hoare's Bank, 37 Fleet Street, London.

15. From Folios 1/4478, 139, 3/539. For a statement of Congreve's account with the Bank of England I am greatly indebted to the kindness of W. Marston Acres, Esq., who also furnished copies of the following two letters, both addressed to Humphry Morice, Governor of the Bank of England:

    Sr.

    I had the favour of y^r. letter yesterday and have no Objection to Mr Maxwells renewall of his authority. besides that your recommendation is of great weight with me. I suppose Mr. Maxwell would be single in the office. I would not do a hard thing by Mr. Wood tho I never see nor hear anything of him. but as he makes no application, I believe he dos not think of it. However, as you were also his security I frankly leave the determination of it to you, & shall in this or any thing in my little power be glad to shew you how much I am with great respect Sr.

    Surrey street Nov^er. 2, 1726

    Y^r. most

    humble & Obedient

    servant

    Wm Congreve.

    Sr

    I had the favour of yrs & sent to Mr. Walter who has all along drawn up the writings in this affair, but he is out of town on the Dorsetshire Election. he is expected to return by the beginning of next week & then I will not fail to let you know what day the writing may be executed. I heartily wish you your health and am S^r. with particular respect.

    Surrey street. feb: 7th, 1726/7

    Y^r. most Obedient

    humble servant

    Wm. Congreve

16. The original letter is preserved in the Original Correspondence for Jamaica, C. O. 137. 12, No. 72. For other documents at the P. R. O. bearing on the controversy between the Governor and Congreve's deputy, see C. O. 137. 10, Nos. 77, 79; C. O. 137. 12, No. 67; C. O. 137. 46, fols. 52, 128-140, 143, 146. See also Journals of the Assembly of Jamaica, II (Jamaica, 1795), pp. 170, 192, 195; Journals of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations from March 1714/5 to October 1718 Preserved in the Publc Record Office (London, 1924), pp. 74, 271-278, 299, 343. The controversy is treated from the point of view of the Governor in an anonymous poem entitled The Politicks and Patriots of Jamaica (London, 1718).

17. P. R. O., C. O. 137. 12, No. 101. The petition shows that the fees for the office of Secretary of Jamaica from 9 March to 6 August 1716 amounted to £641:5:8. Since the fees were divided equally between the Secretary and the deputy, Congreve's income from the office for a full year was apparently between seven and eight hundred pounds.

18. Congreve to Keally, 14 October 1704.

19. See A Description of the Gardens of Lord Viscount Cobham, at Stowe in Buckinghamshire. The Fifth Edition, corrected and enlarg'd (Northampton, 1748), pp. 25, 26.

20. This letter, called to my attention by the kindness of Professor George Sherburn, is from the original in the B. M. Homer MSS. Add. 4808, f. 172.

21. See Swift's Journal to Stella, 5 January 1711/2, and Congreve to Keally, 6 May 1712.

22. Journal to Stella, 26 October 1710 and 8 July 1711.

23. See Swift's Correspondence, ed. F. Elrington Ball, 3 February 1722/3.

24. See Congreve's undated letter to the Duke of Newcastle, in the edition by Dobrée, p. 521.

25. From the Huntington Library.

26. See the letter dated 21 January 1728/29.

27. For the suit of the Duchess of Hamilton against Congreve see P. R. O., Chancery Proceedings, 1714-58, Bundle 2172, No. 19, and Bundle 2221, No. 53. Congreve's answer to the suit is attached to Bundle 2221, No. 53.

28. See the prefaces and dedications to his plays and his letter to Giles Jacob.

29. Letters Concerning the English Nation, Number XIX, as reprinted with introduction by Charles Whibley (London, 1926).

30. See, for example, Dryden's lines “To My Dear Friend Mr. Congreve”; Steele's lines “To Mr. Congreve, Occasion'd by his Comedy Call'd The Way of the World,” and his Dedication to Addison's The Drummer, London, 1722; “A Poem to the Memory of Mr. Congreve,” London, 1729; Gay's poem entitled “Mr. Pope's Welcome from Greece”; the Gentleman's Magazine, IX (1738), 20, 21; and the references to Congreve in the correspondence of Swift, Pope, Dryden, and Gay.