Club Life of London, Vol. 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th CenturiesTimbs, John
History
Club Life of London, Vol. 1 (of 2): With Anecdotes of the Clubs, Coffee-Houses and Taverns of the Metropolis During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries
Timbs, John
Clubs -- England -- London; Literary landmarks -- England -- London; London (England) -- Social life and customs
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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