The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical EssaysSteele, Richard, Sir
General
The Spectator, Volume 1: Eighteenth-Century Periodical Essays
Steele, Richard, Sir
English essays -- 18th century -- Periodicals
IX. If any Member calls another Cuckold, he shall be turned out of
the Club.
X. None shall be admitted into the Club that is of the same Trade
with any Member of it.
XI. None of the Club shall have his Cloaths or Shoes made or mended,
but by a Brother Member.
XII. No Non-juror shall be capable of being a Member.
The Morality of this little Club is guarded by such wholesome Laws and
Penalties, that I question not but my Reader will be as well pleased
with them, as he would have been with the 'Leges Convivales' of _Ben.
Johnson_, [4] the Regulations of an old _Roman_ Club cited by _Lipsius_,
or the rules of a _Symposium_ in an ancient _Greek_ author.
C.
[Footnote 1: The 'Kit-Cat' Club met at a famous Mutton-Pie house in
Shire Lane, by Temple Bar. The house was kept by Christopher Cat, after
whom his pies were called Kit-Cats. The club originated in the
hospitality of Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, who, once a week, was host
at the house in Shire Lane to a gathering of writers. In an occasional
poem on the Kit-Cat Club, attributed to Sir Richard Blackmore, Jacob is
read backwards into Bocaj, and we are told
One Night in Seven at this convenient Seat
Indulgent Bocaj did the Muses treat;
Their Drink was gen'rous Wine and Kit-Cat's Pyes their Meat.
Hence did th' Assembly's Title first arise,
And Kit-Cat Wits spring first from Kit-Cat's Pyes.
About the year 1700 this gathering of wits produced a club in which the
great Whig chiefs were associated with foremost Whig writers, Tonson
being Secretary. It was as much literary as political, and its 'toasting
glasses,' each inscribed with lines to a reigning beauty, caused
Arbuthnot to derive its name from 'its pell mell pack of toasts'
'Of old Cats and young Kits.'
Tonson built a room for the Club at Barn Elms to which each member gave
his portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller, who was himself a member. The
pictures were on a new-sized canvas adapted to the height of the walls,
whence the name 'kit-cat' came to be applied generally to three-quarter
length portraits.]
[Footnote 2: The 'Beef-Steak' Club, founded in Queen Anne's time, first
of its name, took a gridiron for badge, and had cheery Dick Estcourt the
actor for its providore. It met at a tavern in the Old Jewry that had
old repute for broiled steaks and 'the true British quintessence of malt
and hops.']
[Footnote 3: The 'October' Club was of a hundred and fifty Tory squires,
Parliament men, who met at the Bell Tavern, in King Street, Westminster,
and there nourished patriotism with October ale. The portrait of Queen
Anne that used to hang in its Club room is now in the Town
Council-chamber at Salisbury.]
[Footnote 4: In Four and Twenty Latin sentences engraven in marble over
the chimney, in the Apollo or Old Devil Tavern at Temple Bar; that being
his club room.]
* * * * *
No. 10. Monday, March 12, 1711. Addison.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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