Kit-Cat Club
Art Neuendorffer
Kit-Cat Club From Wikipedia
<<The Kit-Cat Club (sometimes Kit-Kat Club) was an early 18th century
English club in London with strong political and literary associations,
committed to the furtherance of Whig objectives. It was founded ca.
1699 by the book seller Jacob Tonson and met at the Trumpet pub in
London, and at Water Oakley in the Berkshire countryside. Before then,
it may have been a secret society active in furthering the Glorious
Revolution of 1689.
The club later moved to the Fountain Tavern on The Strand (now the site
of Simpson's-in-the-Strand), and latterly into a room specially built
for the purpose at Barn Elms, the home of the secretary Tonson. In
summer the club met at the Upper Flask, Hampstead Heath.
The Kit-Cat Club is known today as an early 18th century social
gathering-point in London for culturally and/or politically prominent
Whigs: writers like William Congreve, John Vanbrugh, and Joseph
Addison, and politicians including the Duke of Marlborough, Charles
Seymour, the Earl of Burlington, Thomas Pelham-Holles, and Sir Robert
Walpole.
Other prominent members included Garth, Steele, and the Dukes of
Grafton, Devonshire, Kingston, Richmond, and Newcastle, and Lords
Dorset, Sunderland, Manchester, and Wharton. Two other members of some
notoriety were Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berkeley.
Sir John Vanbrugh in Godfrey Kneller's Kit-cat portrait, considered one
of Kneller's finest portraits.The name Kit-Cat Club is obscure in
origin. The generally accepted version is that the originally met in a
small house in Shire Lane, close to Temple Bar, London, then occupied
by one Christopher Cat, who made and sold mutton-pies. This Kit
(Christopher) Cat gave the name of the Club itself. On the other hand,
the pie itself was already known as a 'Kit-Kat, and is thus itself
sometimes regarded (e.g. by Addison in the Spectator I) as the origin
of the club's name.
It is possible that the Club began at the end of the 17th century as
the so-called Order of the Toast. Indeed, a famous characteristic of
the Kit-Kat was its toasting-glasses, used for drinking the healths of
the reigning beauties of the day, on which were engraved verses in
their praise. If so, one can place the date before 1699, when Elkanah
Settle wrote a poem "To the most renowned the President and the rest of
the Knights of the most Noble Order of the Toast." It was this very
habit of 'toasting' that led Dr. Arbuthnot to produce the following
epigram, which hints at yet another possible origin of the Club's name:
"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 the pell-mell pack of toasts / Of old Cats and young Kits."
However, John Vanbrugh's modern biographer Kerry Downes suggests that
the club's origins go back to before the Glorious Revolution of 1689,
and that its political importance for the promotion of Whig objectives
was much greater before it became known. Those objectives were a strong
Parliament, a limited monarchy, resistance to France, and the
Protestant succession to the throne. On the possible role of an early
Kit-Cat grouping in furthering these goals through armed invasion by
William of Orange and through the Glorious Revolution itself, Downes
cites Whig historian John Oldmixon, who knew many of those involved,
and who wrote in 1735 of how some club members "before the Revolution
[of 1689] met frequently in the Evening at a Tavern, near Temple Bar,
to unbend themselves after Business, and have a little free and
chearful Conversation in those dangerous Times". Horace Walpole, son of
Kit-Cat Robert Walpole refers to the respectable middle-aged 18th
century Kit-Cat club as "generally mentioned as a set of wits, in
reality the patriots that saved Britain", implying that the nexus was
nothing less than the force behind the Glorious Revolution. Secret
political groups with dangerous agendas tend of course to be poorly
documented, and this sketch of the pre-history of the Kit-Cat Club can
hardly be regarded as proven.
Another member was the artist Sir Godfrey Kneller whose 48 portraits in
a standard 'kit-cat' format of 36 by 28 inches, painted over more than
twenty years, form the most complete known members list of the club.
The toasts of the Kit-Kat Club were famous at the time, and drunk to
the honour of a reigning beauty, or lady to whom the Club wished to do
particular honour. We know by name some of those who were toasted: Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu; Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, Lady
Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer, all daughters of the Duke of
Marlborough; the Duchess of Bolton, the Duchess of Beaufort, the
Duchess of St. Albans; Mrs. Long, a friend of Dean Swift; Catherine
Barton, Newton's niece and Charles Montagu's mistress; Mrs. Brudenell
and Lady Wharton, Lady Carlisle and Mrs. Kirk and Mademoiselle
Spanheim, among them.
The KitKat series of chocolate bars is believed to be named after the
Kit-Cat Club.>>
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Addison
Joseph Addison From Wikipedia,
Joseph Addison, the "Kit-cat portrait", circa 1703-1712, by Godfrey
Kneller
<<Joseph Addison (May 1, 1672 - June 17, 1719) was an English
politician and writer. His name is usually remembered alongside that of
his long-standing friend, Richard Steele, with whom he founded The
Spectator magazine.
<<Addison was born in Milston, Wiltshire, his father Lancelot Addison
being dean of the cathedral city of Lichfield. He was educated at
Charterhouse School, where he first met Steele, and at Queen's College,
Oxford. He excelled in classics, being specially noted for his Latin
verse, and became a Fellow of Magdalen. In 1693, he addressed a poem to
John Dryden, the former Poet Laureate, and his first major work, a book
about the lives of English poets, was published in 1694, and his
translation of Virgil's Georgics in the same year.
Such first attempts in English verse were so successful as to obtain
for him the friendship and interest of Dryden, and of Lord Somers, by
whose means he received, in 1699, a pension of £300 to enable him to
travel widely in Europe the continent with a view to diplomatic
employment, all the time writing and studying politics. Hearing of the
death of William III., an event which lost him his pension, he returned
to England in the end of 1703. For a short time his circumstances were
somewhat straitened, but the battle of Blenheim in 1704 gave him a
fresh opportunity of distinguishing himself. The government wished the
event commemorated by a poem; Addison was commissioned to write this,
and produced The Campaign, which gave such satisfaction that he was
forthwith appointed a Commissioner of Appeals in the government of
Halifax. His next literary venture was an account of his travels in
Italy, which was followed by the opera of Rosamund. In 1705, the Whigs
having obtained the ascendency, Addison was made Under-Secretary of
State and accompanied Halifax on a mission to Hanover. In 1708 he
became MP for Malmesbury in his home county of Wiltshire, and was
shortly afterwards appointed as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Keeper
of the Records of that country. He encountered Jonathan Swift in
Ireland, and remained there for a year. Subsequently, he helped found
the Kitcat Club, and renewed his association with Steele. In 1709
Steele began to bring out the Tatler, to which Addison became almost
immediately a contributor: thereafter he (with Steele) started The
Spectator, the first number of which appeared on March 1, 1711. This
paper, which at first appeared daily, was kept up (with a break of
about a year and a half when the Guardian took its place) until
December 20, 1714. In 1713 the drama of Cato appeared, and was received
with acclamation by both Whigs and Tories, and was followed by the
comedy of the Drummer. His last undertaking was The Freeholder, a party
paper (1715-16).
The later events in the life of Addison did not contribute to his
happiness. In 1716, he married the Dowager Countess of Warwick to whose
son he had been tutor, and his political career continued to flourish,
as he served Secretary of State for the Southern Department from 1717
to 1718. However, his political newspaper, The Freeholder, was much
criticised, and Alexander Pope was among those who made him an object
of derision, christening him "Atticus". His wife appears to have been
arrogant and imperious; his step-son the Earl was a rake and unfriendly
to him; while in his public capacity his invincible shyness made him of
little use in Parliament. He eventually fell out with Steele over the
Peerage Bill of 1719. In 1718, Addison was forced to resign as
secretary of state because of his poor health, but remained an MP until
his death at Holland House, June 17, 1719, in his 48th year, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey.
Besides the works above mentioned, he wrote a Dialogue on Medals, and
left unfinished a work on the Evidences of Christianity. The character
of Addison, if somewhat cool and unimpassioned, was pure, magnanimous,
and kind. The charm of his manners and conversation made him one of the
most popular and admired men of his day; and while he laid his friends
under obligations for substantial favours, he showed the greatest
forbearance towards his few enemies. His style in his essays is
remarkable for its ease, clearness, and grace, and for an inimitable
and sunny humour which never soils and never hurts. The motive power of
these writings has been called "an enthusiasm for conduct." Their
effect was to raise the whole standard of manners and expression both
in life and in literature. The only flaw in his character was a
tendency to convivial excess, which must be judged in view of the laxer
manners of his time. When allowance has been made for this, he remains
one of the most admirable characters and writers in English
literature.>>
<<In 1712, Addison wrote his most famous work of fiction, a play
entitled Cato, a Tragedy. Based on the last days of Marcus Porcius Cato
Uticensis, it deals with, inter alia, such themes as individual liberty
vs. government tyranny, Republicanism vs. Monarchism, logic vs. emotion
and Cato's personal struggle to cleave to his beliefs in the face of
death.
The play was a success throughout England and her possessions in the
New World, as well as Ireland. It continued to grow in popularity,
especially in the American colonies, for several generations. Indeed,
it was almost certainly a literary inspiration for the American
Revolution, being well known to many of the Founding Fathers. In fact,
George Washington, had it performed for the Continental Army while they
were encamped at Valley Forge.
Some scholars believe that the source of several famous quotations from
the American Revolution came from, or were inspired by, Cato. These
include:
Patrick Henry's famous ultimatum: "Give me Liberty or give me death!"
(Supposed reference to Act II, Scene 4: "It is not now time to talk of
aught/But chains or conquest, liberty or death.").
Nathan Hale's valediction: "I regret that I have but one life to give
for my country."
(Supposed reference to Act IV, Scene 4: "What a pity it is/That we can
die but once to serve our country.").
Washington's praise for Benedict Arnold in a letter to him: "It is not
in the power of any man to command success; but you have done more -
you have deserved it."
(Clear reference to Act I, Scene 2: "'Tis not in mortals to command
success; but we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it.").
Though the play has fallen considerably from popularity and is now
rarely performed, it remains a favorite source of inspiration (and
quotations) for proponents of individual rights, free markets, and
libertarian values generally. For example, John Trenchard and Thomas
Gordon were inspired by the play to write a series of essays on
classical liberalism and individual rights, using the name "Cato." In
turn, the libertarian think-tank The Cato Institute is named for these
essays.
The action of the play involves the forces of Cato at Utica, awaiting
the arrival of Caesar just after Caesar's victory at Thapsus (46 B.C.).
The noble sons of Cato, Portius and Marcus, are both in love with
Lucia, the daughter of Lucius, a senatorial ally of Cato. Juba, prince
of Numidia, another fighting on Cato's side, loves Cato's daughter
Marcia. Meanwhile, Sempronius, another senator, and Syphax, general of
the Numidians, are conspiring secretly against Cato, hoping to draw off
the Numidian army from supporting him. In the final act, Cato commits
suicide, leaving his supporters to make their peace with the
approaching Caesar--an easier task after Cato's death, since he has
been Caesar's most implacable foe.>>
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Art Neuendorffer