Kit-Kat Club with Jacob Tonson, "an amphibious mortal, chief merchant
to the Muses." Yet this is evidently a caricature. The maker of the
mutton-pies, Ward maintains to be a person named Christopher, who
lived at the sign of the Cat and Fiddle, in Gray's Inn-lane, whence he
removed to keep a pudding-pye shop, near the Fountain Tavern, in the
Strand. Ward commends his mutton-pies, cheese-cakes, and custards, and
the pieman's interest in the sons of Parnassus; and his inviting "a
new set of Authors 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;" adding that "there was not a mathematical figure in
all Euclid's Elements but what was presented to the table in baked
wares, whose cavities were filled with fine eatable varieties fit for
the gods or poets." Mr. Charles Knight, in the _Shilling Magazine_,
No. 2, maintains that by the above is meant, that Jacob Tonson, the
bookseller, was the pieman's "friend," and that to the customary
"whet" to his authors he added the pastry entertainment. Ward adds,
that this grew into a weekly meeting, provided his, the bookseller's
friends would give him the refusal of their juvenile productions. This
"generous proposal was very readily agreed to by the whole poetic
class, and the cook's name being Christopher, for brevity called Kit,
and his sign being the Cat and Fiddle, they very merrily derived a
quaint denomination from puss and her master, and from thence called
themselves of the Kit-Cat Club."
A writer in the _Book of Days_, however, states, that Christopher Cat,
the pastry-cook, of King-street, Westminster, was the keeper of the
tavern, where the Club met; but Shire-lane was, upon more direct
authority, the pieman's abode.
We agree with the _National Review_, that "it is hard to believe, as
we pick our way along the narrow and filthy pathway of Shire-lane,
that in this blind alley [?], some hundred and fifty years ago, used
to meet many of the finest gentlemen and choicest wits of the days of
Queen Anne and the first George. Inside one of those frowsy and
low-ceiled rooms, now tenanted by abandoned women or devoted to the
sale of greengroceries and small coal,--Halifax has conversed and
Somers unbent, Addison mellowed over a bottle, Congreve flashed his
wit, Vanbrugh let loose his easy humour, Garth talked and rhymed."
The Club was literary and gallant as well as political. The members
subscribed 400 guineas for the encouragement of good comedies in 1709.
The Club had its toasting-glasses, inscribed with a verse, or _toast_,
to some reigning beauty; among whom were the four shining daughters of
the Duke of Marlborough--Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, Lady
Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer; Swift's friends, Mrs. Long and Mrs.
Barton, the latter the lovely and witty niece of Sir Isaac Newton; the
Duchess of Bolton, Mrs. Brudenell, and Lady Carlisle, Mrs. Di. Kirk,
and Lady Wharton.
Dr. Arbuthnot, in the following epigram, seems to derive the name of
the Club from this custom of toasting ladies after dinner, rather than
from the renowned maker of mutton-pies:--
"Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name,
Few critics can unriddle:
Some say from pastrycook it came,
And some from Cat and Fiddle.
From no trim beaus its name it boasts,
Grey statesmen or green wits,
But from this pell-mell pack of toasts
Of old Cats and young Kits."
Lord Halifax wrote for the toasting-glasses the following verses in
1703:--
_The Duchess of St. Albans._
The line of Vere, so long renown'd in arms,
Concludes with lustre in St. Albans' charms.
Her conquering eyes have made their race complete:
They rose in valour, and in beauty set.
_The Duchess of Beaufort._
Offspring of a tuneful sire,
Blest with more than mortal fire;
Likeness of a Mother's face,
Blest with more than mortal grace:
You with double charms surprise,
With his wit, and with her eyes.
_The Lady Mary Churchill._
Fairest and latest of the beauteous race,
Blest with your parent's wit, and her first blooming face;
Born with our liberties in William's reign,
Your eyes alone that liberty restrain.
_The Lady Sunderland._
All Nature's charms in Sunderland appear,
Bright as her eyes, and as her reason clear;
Yet still their force to man not safely known,
Seems undiscover'd to herself alone.
_The Mademoiselle Spanheim._
Admir'd in Germany, ador'd in France,
Your charms to brighten glory here advance:
The stubborn Britons own your beauty's claim,
And with their native toasts enrol your name.
_To Mrs. Barton._
Beauty and wit strove, each in vain,
To vanquish Bacchus and his train;
But Barton with successful charms,
From both their quivers drew her arms.
The roving God his sway resigns,
And awfully submits his vines.
In Spence's _Anecdotes_ (note) is the following additional account of
the Club: "You have heard of the Kit-Kat Club," says Pope to Spence.
"The master of the house where the club met was Christopher Katt;
Tonson was secretary. The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berkeley were
entered of it, Jacob said he saw they were just going to be ruined.
When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded emblem on the top of his chair,
Jacob complained to his friends, and said a man who would do that,
would cut a man's throat. So that he had the good and the forms of the
society much at heart. The paper was all in Lord Halifax's handwriting
of a subscription of four hundred guineas for the encouragement of
good comedies, and was dated 1709, soon after they broke up. Steele,
Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Manwaring, Stepney, Walpole, and
Pulteney, were of it; so was Lord Dorset and the present Duke.
Manwaring, whom we hear nothing of now, 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. Jacob has his own,
and all their pictures, by Sir Godfrey Kneller. Each member gave his,
and he is going to build a room for them at Barn Elms."
It is from the size at which these portraits were taken (a
three-quarter length), 36 by 28 inches, that the word Kit-Kat came to
be applied to pictures. Tonson had the room built at Barn Elms; but
the apartment not being sufficiently large to receive half-length
pictures, a shorter canvas was adopted. In 1817, the Club-room was
standing, but the pictures had long been removed; soon after, the room
was united to a barn, to form a riding-house.
In summer the Club met at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath, then a gay
resort, with its races, ruffles, and private marriages.
The pictures passed to Richard Tonson, the descendant of the old
bookseller, who resided at Water-Oakley, on the banks of the Thames:
he added a room to his villa, and here the portraits were hung. On his
death the pictures were bequeathed to Mr. Baker, of Bayfordbury, the
representative of the Tonson family: all of them were included in the
Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester and some in the International
Exhibition of 1862.
The political significance of the Club was such that Walpole records
that though the Club was generally mentioned as "a set of wits," they
were in reality the patriots that saved Britain. According to Pope and
Tonson, Garth, Vanbrugh, and Congreve were the three most
honest-hearted, real good men of the poetical members of the Club.
There were odd scenes and incidents occasionally at the club meetings.
Sir Samuel Garth, physician to George I., was a witty member, and
wrote some of the inscriptions for the toasting-glasses. Coming one
night to the club, Garth declared he must soon be gone, having many
patients to attend; but some good wine being produced, he forgot them.
Sir Richard Steele was of the party, and reminding him of the visits
he had to pay, Garth immediately pulled out his list, which numbered
fifteen, and said, "It's no great matter whether I see them to-night,
or not, for nine of them have such bad constitutions that all the
physicians in the world can't save them; and the other six have such
good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't kill
them."
Dr. Hoadley, Bishop of Bangor, accompanied Steele and Addison to one
of the Whig celebrations by the Club of King William's anniversary;
when Steele had the double duty of celebrating the day and drinking
his friend Addison up to conversation pitch, he being hardly warmed by
that time. Steele was not fit for it. So, John Sly, the hatter of
facetious memory, being in the house, took it into his head to come
into the company on his knees, with a tankard of ale in his hand, to
drink off to the _immortal memory_, and to return in the same manner.
Steele, sitting next Bishop Hoadley, whispered him, "_Do laugh: it is
humanity to laugh_." By-and-by, Steele being too much in the same
condition as the hatter, was put into a chair, and sent home. Nothing
would satisfy him but being carried to the Bishop of Bangor's, late as
it was. However, the chairmen carried him home, and got him upstairs,
when his great complaisance would wait on them downstairs, which he
did, and then was got quietly to bed. Next morning Steele sent the
indulgent bishop this couplet:
"Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits,
All faults he pardons, though he none commits."
Mr. Knight successfully defends Tonson from Ward's satire, and nobly
stands forth for the bookseller who identified himself with Milton, by
first making _Paradise Lost_ popular, and being the first bookseller
who threw open Shakespeare to a reading public. "The statesmen of the
Kit-Kat Club," he adds, "lived in social union with the Whig writers
who were devoted to the charge of the poetry that opened their road to
preferment; the band of orators and wits were naturally hateful to the
Tory authors that Harley and Bolingbroke were nursing into the bitter
satirists of the weekly sheets. Jacob Tonson naturally came in for a
due share of invective. In a poem entitled '_Factions Displayed_,' he
is ironically introduced as "the Touchstone of all modern wit;" and he
is made to vilify the great ones of Barn Elms:
"'I am the founder of your loved Kit-Kat,
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 boast, and rhyme, and bite,
To sleep away the day, and drink away the night.'"
Tonson deserved better of posterity.
THE TATLER'S CLUB
IN SHIRE-LANE.
Shire-lane, _alias_ Rogue-lane, (which falleth into Fleet-street by
Temple Bar,) has lost its old name--it is now called Lower
Serle's-place. If the morals of Shire-lane have mended thereby, we
must not repine.
Here lived Sir Charles Sedley; and here his son, the dramatic poet,
was born, "neere the Globe." Here, too, lived Elias Ashmole, and here
Antony à Wood dined with him: this was at the upper end of the lane.
Here, too, was the _Trumpet_ tavern, where Isaac Bickerstaff met his
Club. At this house he dated a great number of his papers; and hence
he led down the lane, into Fleet-street, the deputation of "Twaddlers"
from the country, to Dick's Coffee-house, which we never enter without
remembering the glorious humour of Addison and Steele, in the
_Tatler_, No. 86. Sir Harry Quickset, Sir Giles Wheelbarrow, and other
persons of quality, having reached the Tatler's by appointment, and it
being settled that they should "adjourn to some public-house, and
enter upon business," the precedence was attended with much
difficulty; when, upon a false alarm of "fire," all ran down as fast
as they could, without order or ceremony, and drew up in the street.
The _Tatler_ proceeds: "In this order we marched down Sheer-lane, at
the upper end of which I lodge. When we came to Temple Bar, Sir Harry
and Sir Giles got over, but a run of coaches kept the rest of us on
this side of the street; however, we all at last landed, and drew up
in very good order before Ben Tooke's shop, who favoured our rallying
with great humanity; from whence we proceeded again, until we came to
Dick's Coffee-house, where I designed to carry them. Here we were at
our old difficulty, and took up the street upon the same ceremony. We
proceeded through the entry, and were so necessarily kept in order by
the situation, that we were now got into the coffee-house itself,
where, as soon as we had arrived, we repeated our civilities to each
other; after which we marched up to the high table, which has an
ascent to it enclosed in the middle of the room. The whole house was
alarmed at this entry, made up of persons of so much state and
rusticity."
The _Tatler's_ Club is immortalized in his No. 132. Its members are
smokers and old story-tellers, rather easy than shining companions,
promoting the thoughts tranquilly bedward, and not the less
comfortable to Mr. Bickerstaff because he finds himself the leading
wit among them. There is old Sir Jeffrey Notch, who has had
misfortunes in the world, and calls every thriving man a pitiful
upstart, by no means to the general dissatisfaction; there is Major
Matchlock, who served in the last Civil Wars, and every night tells
them of his having been knocked off his horse at the rising of the
London apprentices, for which he is in great esteem; there is honest
Dick Reptile, who says little himself, but who laughs at all the
jokes; and there is the elderly bencher of the Temple, and, next to
Mr. Bickerstaff, the wit of the company, who has by heart the couplets
of _Hudibras_, which he regularly applies before leaving the Club of
an evening; and who, if any modern wit or town frolic be mentioned,
shakes his head at the dulness of the present age, and tells a story
of Jack Ogle. As for Mr. Bickerstaff himself, he is esteemed among
them because they see he is something respected by others; but though
they concede to him a great deal of learning, they credit him with
small knowledge of the world, "insomuch that the Major sometimes, in
the height of his military pride, calls me philosopher; and Sir
Jeffrey, no longer ago than last night, upon a dispute what day of the
month it was then in Holland, pulled his pipe out of his mouth, and
cried, 'What does the scholar say to that?'"
Upon Addison's return to England, he found his friend Steele
established among the wits; and they were both received with great
honour at the Trumpet, as well as at Will's, and the St. James's.
The Trumpet public-house lasted to our time; it was changed to the
Duke of York sign, but has long disappeared: we remember an old
drawing of the Trumpet, by Sam. Ireland, engraved in the _Monthly
Magazine_.
THE ROYAL SOCIETY CLUB.
In Sir R. Kaye's Collection, in the British Museum, we find the
following account of the institution of a Society, which at one time
numbered among its members some of the most eminent men in London, in
a communication to the Rev. Sir R. Kaye by Sir Joseph Ayloffe, an
original member:--"Dr. Halley used to come on a Tuesday from
Greenwich, the Royal Observatory, to Child's Coffeehouse, where
literary people met for conversation: and he dined with his sister,
but sometimes they stayed so long that he was too late for dinner, and
they likewise, at their own home. They then agree to go to a house in
Dean's-court, between an alehouse and a tavern, now a stationer's
shop, where there was a great draft of porter, but not drank in the
house. It was kept by one Reynell. It was agreed that one of the
company should go to Knight's and buy fish in Newgate-street, having
first informed himself how many meant to stay and dine. The ordinary
and liquor usually came to half-a-crown, and the dinner only consisted
of fish and pudding. Dr. Halley never eat anything but fish, for he
had no teeth. The number seldom exceeded five or six. It began to take
place about 1731; soon afterwards Reynell took the King's Arms, in St.
Paul's Churchyard, and desired Dr. Halley to go with him there. He and
others consented, and they began to have a little meat. On Dr.
Halley's death, Martin Foulkes took the chair. They afterwards removed
to the Mitre (Fleet-street), for the convenience of the situation with
respect to the Royal Society, and as it was near Crane-court, and
numbers wished to become members. It was necessary to give it a form.
The number was fixed at forty members; one of whom was to be Treasurer
and Secretary of the Royal Society."
Out of these meetings is said to have grown the Royal Society Club,
or, as it was styled during the first half century of its existence,
the Club of Royal Philosophers. "It was established for the
convenience of certain members who lived in various parts, that they
might assemble and dine together on the days when the Society held its
evening meetings; and from its almost free admission of members of the
Council detained by business, its liberality to visitors, and its
hospitable reception of scientific foreigners, it has been of obvious
utility to the scientific body at large." (_Rise and Progress of the
Club_, privately printed.)
The foundation of the Club is stated to have been in the year 1743,
and in the Minutes of this date are the following:--
"_Rules and Orders to be observed by the Thursday's Club, called the
Royal Philosophers._--A Dinner to be ordered every Thursday for six,
at one shilling and sixpence a head for eating. As many more as come
to pay one shilling and sixpence per head each. If fewer than six
come, the deficiency to be paid out of the fund subscribed. Each
Subscriber to pay down six shillings, viz. for four dinners, to make a
fund. A pint of wine to be paid for by every one that comes, be the
number what it will, and no more, unless more wine is brought in than
that amounts to."
In addition to Sir R. Kaye's testimony to the existence of a club of
an earlier date than 1743, there are in the Minutes certain references
to "antient Members of the Club;" and a tradition of the ill omen of
thirteen persons dining at the table said to be on record in the Club
papers: "that one of the Royal Philosophers entering the Mitre Tavern,
and finding twelve others about to discuss the fare, retreated, and
dined by himself in another apartment, in order to avert the
prognostic." Still, no such statement is now to be found entered, and
if ever it were recorded, it must have been anterior to 1743;
curiously enough, thirteen is a very usual number at these dinners.
The original Members were soon increased by various Fellows of the
Society; and at first the club did not consist exclusively of Royals;
but this arrangement, not having been found to work well, the
membership was confined to the Fellows, and latterly to the number of
forty. Every Member was allowed to introduce one friend; but the
President of the Royal Society was not limited in this respect.
We must now say a few words as to the several places at which the Club
has dined. The _Society_ had their Anniversary Dinner at Pontack's
celebrated French eating-house, in Abchurch-lane, City, until 1746.
Evelyn notes: "30 Nov. 1694. Much importuned to take the office of
President of the Royal Society, but I again declined it. Sir Robert
Southwell was continued. We all dined at Pontac's, as usual." Here, in
1699, Dr. Bentley wrote to Evelyn, asking him to meet Sir Christopher
Wren, Sir Robert Southwell, and other friends, at dinner, to consider
the propriety of purchasing Bishop Stillingfleet's library for the
Royal Society.
From Pontack's, which was found to be inconveniently situated for the
majority of the Fellows, the Society removed to the Devil Tavern, near
Temple Bar.
The Minutes record that the _Club_ met at the Mitre Tavern, in
Fleet-street, "over against Fetter-lane," from the date of their
institution; this house being chosen from its being handy to
Crane-court, where the Society then met. This, be it remembered, was
not the Mitre Tavern now standing in Mitre-court, but "the Mitre
Tavern, _in Fleet-street_," mentioned by Lilly, in his _Life_, as the
place where he met old Will. Poole, the astrologer, then living in
Ram-alley. _The Mitre, in Fleet-street_, Mr. J. H. Burn, in his
excellent Account of the Beaufoy Tokens, states to have been
originally established by a William Paget, of the Mitre in Cheapside,
who removed westward after his house had been destroyed in the Great
Fire of September, 1666. The house in Fleet-street was lastly
Saunders's Auction-room, No. 39, and was demolished by Messrs. Hoare,
to enlarge the site for their new banking-house, the western portion
of which now occupies the tavern site. The now Mitre Tavern, in Mitre
court, formerly Joe's, is but a recent assumption of name.[7]
In 1780, the Club removed to the Crown and Anchor Tavern, in the
Strand, where they continued to dine for sixty-eight years, until that
tavern was converted, in 1848, into a Club-house. Then they removed to
the Freemasons' Tavern, in Great Queen Street; but, in 1857, on the
removal of the Royal Society to Burlington House, Piccadilly, it was
considered advisable to keep the Club meetings at the Thatched House,
in St. James's Street, where they continued until that tavern was
taken down.
During the early times, the docketings of the Club accounts show that
the brotherhood retained the title of Royal Philosophers to the year
1786, when it seems they were only designated the Royals; but they
have now settled into the "Royal Society Club." The elections are
always an exciting matter of interest, and the fate of candidates is
occasionally severe, for there are various instances of rejections on
two successive annual ballots, and some have been black-balled even on
a third venture: some of the defeated might be esteemed for talent,
yet were considered unclubbable.
Some of the entries in the earliest minute-book are very curious, and
show that the Philosophers did not restrict themselves to "the fish
and pudding dinner." Here is the bill of fare for sixteen persons, a
few years after the Club was established: "Turkey, boiled, and
oysters; Calves' head, hashed; Chine of Mutton; Apple pye; 2 dishes of
herrings; Tongue and udder; Leg of pork and pease; Sirloin of beef;
Plum pudding; butter and cheese." Black puddings are stated to have
figured for many years at every dinner of the Club.
The presents made to the Club were very numerous, and called for
special regulations. Thus, under the date of May 3, 1750, it is
recorded: "Resolved, _nem. con._, That any nobleman or gentleman
complimenting this company annually with venison, not less than a
haunch, shall, during the continuance of such annuity, be deemed an
Honorary Member, and admitted as often as he comes, without paying the
fine, which those Members do who are elected by ballot." At another
Meeting, in the same year, a resolution was passed, "That any
gentleman complimenting this Society annually with a Turtle shall be
considered as an Honorary Member;" and that the Treasurer do pay
Keeper's fees and carriage for all venison sent to the Society, and
charge it in his account. Thus, besides gratuities to cooks, there are
numerous chronicled entries of the following tenour:--"Keeper's fees
and carriage of a buck from the Hon. P. Yorke, 14_s._; Fees, etc., for
Venison and Salmon, £1. 15_s._; Do., half a Buck from the Earl of
Hardwick, £1. 5_s._; Fees and carriage for a Buck from H. Read, Esq.,
£1.3_s._ 6_d._; Fees for Venison and Game from Mr. Banks, £1. 9_s._
6_d._; ... August 15, 1751. The Society being this day entertained
with halfe a Bucke by the Most Honorable the Marquis of Rockingham, it
was agreed, _nem. con._, to drink his health in claret. Sept. 5th,
1751.--The Company being entertained with a whole Bucke (halfe of
which was dressed to-day) by Henry Read, Esq., his health was drunk in
claret, as usual; and Mr. Cole (_the landlord_) was desired to dispose
of the halfe, and give the Company Venisons instead of it next
Thursday." The following week the largess is again gravely noticed:
"The Company being this day regaled with the other halfe of Mr. Read's
buck (which Mr. Cole had preserved sweet), his health was again drank
in claret."
Turtle has already been mentioned among the presents. In 1784, the
circumnavigator Lord Anson honoured the Club by presenting the members
with a magnificent Turtle, when the Club drank his Lordship's and
other turtle donors' healths in claret. On one occasion, it is stated
that the usual dining-room could not be occupied on account of a
turtle being dressed which weighed 400 lb.; and another minute records
that a turtle, intended to be presented to the Club, died on its way
home from the West Indies.
James Watt has left the following record of one of the Philosophers'
turtle feasts, at which he was present:--"When I was in London in
1785, I was received very kindly by Mr. Cavendish and Dr. Blagden, and
my old friend Smeaton, who has recovered his health, and seems hearty.
I dined at a turtle feast with them, and the select Club of the Royal
Society; and never was turtle eaten with greater sobriety and
temperance, or more good fellowship."