’Descended from its high politic flavour, Down to a sentimental toasting savour.’ _Byron improved_. The club was invaded by a spirit of gallantry. When a number of fashionable gentlemen meet, politics are all very well for a time; horses will afford the next subject of entertainment, but the women must come in in the end. And so the members of the Kit-Kat Club established the custom of every year electing some reigning beauty as a toast. To the queen of the year the members wrote epigrammatic verses, which were etched with a diamond on the club glasses, or a separate bowl was dedicated to her worship, and the lines engraved thereon. Some of the most celebrated of the toasts had their pictures hung up in the club-room. How Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when only eight years old, was introduced and declared the beauty of the year, has often been told. Of course, to our more refined ideas of propriety the conduct of her father, the Duke of Kingston, in thus thrusting his infant daughter into the society of his roistering boon-companions, cannot but appear as highly reprehensible. Among the more celebrated of the toasts were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough: Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, generally known as the Little Whig, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer. Swift’s friend, Mrs. Long, and the niece of Sir Isaac Newton were two others. Others were the Duchesses of Bolton, St. Albans, Richmond and Beaufort; also Lady Molyneux, who, Walpole says, died smoking a pipe. We will conclude our account of this club with a few stray notes. Three o’clock in the morning seems to have been no uncommon hour for the club to break up. Addison and Steele usually got drunk, so did Dr. Garth, the poet laureate of the club, wherefore a Tory lampooner said that at this club the youth of Anne’s reign learned ’To sleep away the days, and drink away the nights.’ When Tonson had gone to live at Barn Elms, the members generally held their meetings at his house. In the summer they would resort to the Upper Flask tavern, near Hampstead Heath; but this practice did not continue long: there was too much difficulty in getting home after strong potations. The Upper Flask eventually became a private house, and was occupied by George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, till his death. The Kit-Kat Club died out before the year 1727, and we now take leave of it.