The Kit-Cat Club.
Originally published in Leigh Hunt's Journal (Edward Moxon) vol.1 #3 (21 Dec 1850).
Horace Walpole, in his life of Sir Godfrey Kneller, says—"The Kit-Cat Club, generally mentioned as a set of wits, was, in reality, an assembly of patriots who saved Britain." The truth is, that it consisted of both wits and patriots. In the Spectator, the Club is described as having taken its name from a mutton-pie, which was called a Kit-Cat, after a certain pastry-cook of that name, who had become famous for his skill in manufacturing such wares; and, from a note to the same passage, we learn that the "Club was originally formed in Shire Lane, by Temple Bar, about the time of the trial of the seven bishops (June 1688), for a little free evening conversation." A writer in the Quarterly Review, while admitting that the precise date of the Club's foundation cannot be ascertained, says—"It was undoubtedly about the time of the Revolution a convivial assembly of young patriots, poets, and men of wit—Montague, Dorset, Prior, Garth; and the success of the Whig politics gave consistency, while the rise of the individual members gave lustre, to the Club."
Ned Ward, a buffoon writer of the day, in his Secret History of Clubs, published in 1709, gives, what professes to be, a circumstantial account of the formation of the Club, but says nothing about the date of its origin. He describes, however, the Town and Country Mouse, a parody on Dryden's Hind and Panther, by Prior and Montague, as one of the first productions of "a parcel of poetical young sprigs," fresh from college, whom Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, had gathered round him, and who formed the nucleus of the famous Kit-Cat Club. As Dryden's pro-Catholic poem appeared some time before the expulsion of James the Second, whose cause it was intended to serve; and as Montague and Prior's parody was published soon afterwards, this would fix the date of the Club's origin about a year or so before the Revolution of 1688.
At the time when Dryden wrote the Hind and Panther with a view to promote Catholicism, the Jesuits of the Continent were in high spirits on account of the prosperous condition of the Roman Catholic religion. In their letters, they spoke with rapture of what they were doing in England to remove education out of the hands of the heretics. "We are gradually gaining ground," they say; "we have got chairs of humanity at Lincoln, Norwich, and York; and at Worcester a public chapel, under the protection of the soldiery. Our interests are advancing most powerfully; fathers of our order preach before the royal family, and in the principal churches, where they attract crowded audiences of the faithful." Such was the state of things when Jacob Tonson, a thorough Whig, and a number of the young authors, holding similar opinions, who came about his shop, began to meet regularly "for a little free evening conversation." Unfortunately, there was no Boswell among their number. Had there been some such faithful reporter, we might have been able to give a more complete notice of their early symposia than we are able to collect from the loose but, in this instance, not untrustworthy testimony of Mr. Edward Ward.
Jacob Tonson, in those days, occupied a shop in Chancery Lane, not far from the sign of the "Cat and Fiddle," where Christopher Cat had acquired such renown as a maker of mutton pies.
"This worthy," says our informant, "finding out the knack of humouring his neighbour Jacob's palate, had, by his culinary qualifications, so highly advanced himself in the favour of his good friend, that, through his advice and assistance, he removed out of Gray's Inn Lane to keep a pudding-pie shop, near the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, encouraged by an assurance that Jacob and his friends would come once a week, to storm the crusty walls of his mutton pies, and make a consumption of his custards."
No sooner had Christopher removed to his new residence, than a formal gathering of the literary Whig club took place, under the auspices of Jacob Tonson.
"He invited them," quoth the secret historian, "to a collation of oven trumpery at his friend's house, where they were nobly entertained with as curious a batch of pastry delicacies as ever were seen at the winding up of a Lord Mayor's feast, upon the day of his triumph. There was not a mathematical figure in all Euclid's Elements, but was presented at the table in baked wares, whose cavities were filled with fine eatable varieties fit for gods or poets. This procured the cook so mighty a reputation among his new rhyming customers, that they thought it a scandal to the muses that so heavenly a bouquet should go untagged with poetry, when the ornamental folds of every luscious cheesecake, and the artful walls of every golden custard, deserved to be immortalized. They could, therefore, scarce demolish the embellished covering of a pigeon pie without a distich, or break through the sundry tunics of a puff-paste apple tart without a smart epigram upon the glorious occasion."
The first meeting having gone off so well, Jacob proposed that they should meet at the same place once a week; and that he should continue to provide a similar entertainment for them at each meeting, with this proviso, that he should have the refusal of all such works as they might be disposed to publish.
"This proposal was readily agreed to by all the company, and the cook's name being Christopher, for brevity called Kit, and the sign being the 'Cat and Fiddle,' they very merrily derived a quaint denomination from puss and her master, and from thence called themselves the Kit-Cat Club.
"Hence did th' assembly's title first arise,
And Kit-Kat wits first sprang from Kit-Kat pyes."
So sings a Tory squib of the day.
Jacob Tonson being thus the founder of the club, he was appointed chairman, a post which he continued to fill for several years; indeed, he seems always to have been the chief upholder of the association, as may be gathered from various passages in letters addressed to him by members of the club; for an arrangement which begins in jest is often continued half in jest and half in earnest, and the jest is put into the chair for the sake of convenience. Thus, when the club had grown respectable, and "a good thing," even the proud Duke of Semerset, writing to the old bookseller, June 22, 1703, says—"Our club is dissolved till you revive it again, which we are impatient of." Tonson was then in Holland, where he had gone to procure paper and engravings for a splendid edition of "Caesar's Commentaries," which he was preparing. During his absence, Vanbrugh, one of whose intimacy Tonson particularly valued himself,[1] wrote to him in the following terms:—
"In short, the Kit-Cat wants you much more than you can ever do them. Those who remain in town are in great desire of waiting on you at Barn Elms, not that they have finished their pictures either, though, to excuse them as well as myself, Sir Godfrey has been most in fault. The fool has got a country-house, near Hampton Court, and is so fitting it up (to receive nobody) that there is no getting him to work."
Vanbrugh here alludes to the famous portraits of the members of the club, upon which Sir Godfrey Kneller was then engaged, for the embellishment of a room in Jacob Tonson's country residence at Barn Elms, where the meetings of the club were frequently held by way of variety. It was the Duke of Somerset who set the example of presenting his portrait to the founder of the club, as a mark of respect, and he was soon followed by all the others. The whole of the portraits were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, and, with the exception of his own, were all uniform in size. In order to adapt them to the height of the club-room, at Barn-Elms, they were painted of a size somewhat larger than a three-quarters, and less than a half-length, admitting only one arm. Hence, all of that size have since been termed Kit-Cats. They were all engraved in mezzotint, and copies of the engravings are still frequently to be met with.
The following is a list of the portraits, as given by Nichols in his Literary Anecdotes:—
Thomas Pelham, Duke of Neweastle, and Henry, Earl of Lincoln, in one picture; Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset; William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire; Charles Lenox, Duke of Richmond; Charles Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton; John Montagu, Duke of Montagu; Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset; Richard, Lord Lumley; Charles Howard, Earl of Carlisle; Sir Richard Temple; Thomas Hopkins, Esq.; William Walsh, Esq.; Algernon Capel, Earl of Essex; James, Earl of Berkely; John Vaughan, Earl of Carbery; Charles, Lord Cornwallis; Charles Mon, Earl of Halifax; John, Lord Somers; Thomas, Earl of Wharton; Charles Montagu, Earl of Manchester; Evelyn Pierpoint, Marquis of Dorchester; Lionel Cranfield Sackville, Earl of Dorset; Charles, Lord Mohun; Robert Walpole, Esq.; Spencer Compton, Esq.; Lieut.-General James Stanhope; Hon. William Pulteney; John Dormer, Esq.; John Tidcomb, Esq.; Abraham Stanyan, Esq.; John Dryden, Esq.; Sir Godfrey Kneller; Jacob Tofson, senior; Sir John Vanbrugh; William Congreve, Esq.; Joseph Addison, Esq.; Sir Samuel Garth, M.D.; Sir Richard Steele; Arthur Maynwaring, Esq.; George Stepney, Esq.; and Francis, Lord Godolphin.
These pictures were left by old Tonson to his nephew Jacob, who succeeded to the business in 1722; and at the death of the latter they became the property of Richard, the brother of Jacob Tonson the younger, who removed them to his residence at Water Oakley, near Windsor. On the death of the latter, they came into the possession of Mr. Baker, of Hertingfordbury, where they were in 1820. What further changes they may have undergone since then we are unable to relate.
To return to the club. According to the "Historian," the meetings, after having been held for some time at the sign of the Cat and Fiddle, were adjourned to the Fountain Tavern, in the Strand. The scent of the oven in hot weather being voted a nuisance, for even in those days people preferred a pleasant place of meeting quite as much as we do, although it was not the fashion to speak so much about sanitory reform, the towns being much less over-crowded than they are now a days. Accordingly, says the facetious recorder—
"It was wisely agreed that a cellar of wine was a better foundation for a society of wits to erect their pyramid of fame upon than the arch of an oven, whose voracious mouth had swallowed so many reams of their enchanting labours."
Besides their regular weekly meetings at the Fountain, and their frequent visits to Barn Elms, where Jacob Tonson had built a room for their special reception, the members of the club were in the habit of assembling in the summer months at the Upper Flask Tavern, on Hampstead Heath. This house of entertainment, which was of a superior class, was situated on the eastern side of High-street, on the edge of the heath. The building, we believe, is still in existence, but only as a private residence. After it ceased to be a tavern, it became the property and residence of George Stevens, the commentator of Shakspeare; and is celebrated in the scarcely less tangible annals of romance, as the house to which Clarissa Harlow fled during her persecutions by Lovelace. Little as we know of the ordinary proceedings of the Kit-Cat Club, we can speak with tolerable certainty as to the fact of their meetings being of a very convivial character. The custom of toasting ladies in regular succession, which had only recently been introduced, was regularly practised at the meetings of the club, and each glass was inscribed with verses addressed to some fair lady who was deemed worthy of so high an honour. No lady could become a toast unless she was regularly chosen by the votes of the club, after which her name was written upon a glass with a diamond pen. Specimens of these eulogies are to be seen in the poems of Garth, Lansdowne, and others. When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was a child, she was taken one day to the club by her father, the Marquis of Dorchester (afterwards Duke of Kingston), and toasted prematurely for her beauty and sprightliness,
The latter years of the club are involved in obscurity. It is supposed to have broken up in 1720, but this is rather inferred than known to be the fact. It is certain, however, that Jacob Tonson went to Paris in 1719, and that, having made a large sum of money in the Mississippi scheme, he retired from business in the following year to his estate in Herefordshire. As he had been the mainstay of the club, that is to say, took all the trouble of the books and expenditure, we may reasonably conclude that his permanent absence would lead to its dissolution. In 1725, we find Vanbrugh, in a letter to Tonson, alluding to the club as no longer existing.
"You may believe when I tell you, you were often talked of, both during the journey and at home; and our former Kit-Cat days were remembered with pleasure. We were one night reckoning who were left, and both Lord Carlisle and Cobham expressed a great desire of having one meeting next winter, if you come to town; not as a club, but as old friends that have been of a club, and the best club that ever met."
Whether this meeting took place or not, we cannot say; Jacob Tonson was then an old man, and had settled down upon his Herefordshire estate, where he died in 1736, in the 80th year of his age.
1. "I'm in with Captain Vanbrugh at the present,
A most good-natured gentleman and pleasant,
Who writes your comedies, draws schemes, and models,
And builds Duke's houses upon very odd hills."
Rowe upon Tonson and Congreve.