17 Richard Blackmore, The Kit-Cats, A Poem (1708).
18 Letter of 9 May 1711 signed ‘Ch Chatt’. Location now unknown.
19 John Dryden, MacFlecknoe (1682), line 101.
20 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 3, no. 367, Thursday, 1 May 1712, by Addison.
21 William Burnaby, The Reform'd Wife (1700), Prologue.
22 John Dennis, Letters Upon Several Occasions (1696).
23 William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1693), Act 4, Scene 1.
24 Owen Sweeney, The Quacks, or, Love's the Physician (29 March 1705) ‘As it was Acted after being twice forbid at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane’, Translation from Moliere's L'Amour Medicin but very altered, Act I, Stationer Freckle to Dr Medley. See also Thomas McGreary, ‘A Satire on the Opening of the Haymarket Theatre’, Restoration and 18th Century Theatre Research 15 (Winter 2000), pp. 18–32, and Albert Rosenberg, ‘A New Move for the Censorship of Owen Swiney's The Quacks’, Notes and Queries, vol. 203 (September 1958), pp. 393–6.
25 Edward (Ned) Ward, The History of the London Clubs (1709).
26 Richard Blackmore, The Kit-Cats, A Poem (1708).
27 George Stepney, ‘Juvenal's Eighth Satire’, in Dryden and Congreve's 1693 edition of Juvenal. See Robert Anderson (ed.), The Poets of Great Britain (London 1792–3), vol. 6, p. 525.
28 John Macky, A Journey through England (1714), p. 188.
29 PRO Stepney Papers, 105/82, 12 March 1694/5. Prior said Congreve's poem on Mary's death was ‘only for Hanging the Rooms & painting a dismal Scene, but 'tis Mr Stepney only [who] shows the Queen’.
30 Bibliopolo the Bookseller, in William Shippen, Faction Display'd (1704).
31 Edward (Ned) Ward, Satyrical Reflections Upon Clubs in xxix chapters (1710).
32 John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London 1997), pp. 40–1.
33 Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford, 1905 edn), vol. 2, p. 42.
34 Abigail Williams, Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture 1681–1714 (Oxford, 2005), p. 216: ‘The patronage of contemporary writers by Whig statesmen took place under William's personal authority.’ Williams argues that the greatest Kit-Cat patrons—Dorset, Somers and Halifax—acted as King William's unofficial ministers for the arts, channelling State funds towards writers in the form of jobs and sinecures at the King's behest, however there is no evidence that the King's tight control of the political sphere extended to England's literary culture and that these men were not using state resources for their own exercise of personal (or collective, Kit-Cat) patronage.
35 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), no. 79, Tuesday, 8 October 1709.
36 John Macky, Characters of the Court of Queen Anne (1733).
IV THE TOAST OF THE TOWN: A KIT-CAT MEETING, 1697
1 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 4, no. 508, Monday, 13 October 1712, by Steele.
2 Ibid., vol. 1, no. 119, Tuesday, 17 July 1711, by Addison.
3 Ibid., vol. 2, no. 202, Monday, 22 October 1711, by Steele.
4 Ibid., vol. 2, no. 195, Saturday, 13 October 1711, by Addison.
5 William Congreve, ‘Concerning Humour in Comedy’, essay written as a letter to John Dennis (of Will's Coffee House circle) on 10 July 1695.
6 Peter Conrad, The Everyman History of English Literature (London, 1985), p. 308.
7 Samuel Pepys quoted in William Drogo Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne (London, 1864), vol. 2, p. 61.
8 Jonathan Swift quoted in Patrick Delany, Observations upon Lord Orrery's Remarks (London, 1754), p. 202.
9 HMC, Bath MSS, The Prior Papers, Matthew Prior to Charles Montagu, 3 May (NS) 1697.
10 George Stepney to Charles Montagu, January 1697, quoted in Susan Spens, George Stepney 1663–1707: Diplomat and Poet (Cambridge, 1997), p. 146.
11 Henry (‘Harry’) Boyle, William Cavendish (the Duke of Devonshire's son, styled Marquess of Hartington in 1697), Charles Cornwallis (a Suffolk MP before his peerage of 1698), Anthony Henley, Richard Norton (a close friend of Henley's since university) and Sir Richard Temple (4th Baronet of Stowe since May 1697, but not elevated to the Lords until 1713) were the Kit-Cats with seats in the 1697–8 Commons, all essentially Junto loyalists.
12 The Proceedings of the House of Commons, vol. 3 (London, 1745), p. 76.
13 John Somers, ‘A letter balancing the necessity of keeping a land force in times of peace, with the dangers that may follow it’ (1697).
14 John Dryden et al., The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis (1697), p. lii. Note the similarity between this movement and the recent classical popularizations by poets Ted Hughes (of Ovid) and Christopher Logue (of Homer).
15 John Dryden's Preface to William Walsh, A Dialogue Concerning Women, being a Defence of the Fair Sex (1691).
16 Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Handley, The House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge, 2002), entry on William Walsh MP (1662–1708), vol. 5, p. 785.
17 William Congreve, ‘The Birth of the Muse, To the Right Honourable Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer etc’ (1698).
18 Colley Cibber quoted in Madeleine Bingham, Masks and Façades: Sir John Vanbrugh, the Man and his Setting (London, 1974), p. 62.
19 John Coke to Thomas Coke, Cowper MSS, Hist MSS Comm, 12th Report, Appendix, Part II (London, 1888), p. 368.
20 John Dryden letter of 4 March 1699 on the playbill for The Double Dealer revival, quoted in John C. Hodges, William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), p. 102.
21 Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber (1740), ed. B. R. S. Fone (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1968), p. 122.
22 Charles Gildon and Gerard Langbaine, The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatic Poets (1712 edn), p. 142. Despite earlier praise of Congreve's wit, Gildon concludes that ‘none else can stand in Competition with [Vanbrugh]’. See also Giles Jacob, The Poetical Register (1719–20), vol. 2, p. 262, a biographical work on which we know Congreve was consulted about his friends, that compliments Vanbrugh's wit and ‘sprightliness’, original characters, and natural style.
23 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), William Congreve to Joseph Keally on 2 July 1700.
24 Ibid., Richard Steele to William Congreve, 29 December 1713 (Dedication to Poetical Miscellanies, 1714).
25 Edward (Ned) Ward, The History of the London Clubs (1709).
26 Matthew Prior, ‘Jinny the Just’ (n.d.) quoted in Kathleen M. Lynch, Jacob Tonson, Kit-Cat Publisher (Knoxville, Tenn., 1971), p. 49. Ned Ward, although he did not attend the Club's meetings, described the toasting of ladies in 1709 as a post-prandial recreation, after the board was cleared of the final course.
27 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 1, no. 9, Saturday, 10 March 1711, by Addison.
28 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), vol. 1, no. 24, Saturday, 4 June 1709, by Steele.
29 John Charlton to the Marchioness of Granby, November 1703. Charlton, a kinsman of the Earl of Rutland, was not a Kit-Cat, but knew Hartington and seems to have been close enough to the action to supply copies of the toasting poems to the curious Marchioness (the daughter of Lady Rachel Russell and married to the Marquess of Granby who later became Duke of Rutland): ‘[O]n the Kit-cat, 'tis proper to tell your Ladyship that a great number of glasses are chose and a set number of ladies’ names are writ on them, and as an addition some fine thing is to be said on every lady and writ there too…Above thirty glasses will have something of the kind I send your Ladyship.' HMC, Rutland MSS, vol. 2, p. 177.
30 Mary Astell, Bart'lemy Fair: or, an Enquiry after Wit (1709), Dedication ‘To the most Illustrious Society of the Kit-Cats’.
31 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 2, no. 182, Friday, 28 September 1711, by Steele.
32 Ibid., vol. 3, no. 342,
Wednesday, 2 April 1712, by Steele.
33 ‘The First Letter from B. to Mr E[therege]’ in James Thorpe (ed.), The Poems of Sir George Etherege (Princeton, NJ, 1963), pp. 40–5.
34 Anon., The Patentee (1700).
35 BL Add MS 40,060—The Oath of the Toast, by Mr Congreve.
36 PRO Stepney Papers, 105/82—Charles Montagu to George Stepney, 14 April 16??.
37 The story about Lady Mary Wortley Montagu being brought in by her father was reported years later by her granddaughter, Lady Louisa Stuart. See James A. Home (ed.), Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton (Edinburgh, 1903), vol. 1, p. 294. Note that LMWM was moved out of London at the age of 9, lending credence to Louisa's claim that this evening happened before then, in 1697 or earlier.
38 Ibid.
39 Lord Wharncliffe (ed.), The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (London, 1861), vol. 1, pp. 52–3.
40 James A. Home (ed.), Letters of Lady Louisa Stuart to Miss Louisa Clinton (Edinburgh, 1903), vol. 1, p. 294.
41 Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694).
42 Edward (Ned) Ward, The History of the London Clubs (1709).
V CULTURE WARS
1 Richard I. Cook, Sir Samuel Garth (Boston, Mass., 1980), p. 112.
2 Joseph Addison, The Freeholder, no. 37, Friday, 27 April 1716.
3 John Dunton, Preface, The Night-Walker (1696).
4 The Proceedings of the House of Commons (London, 1745), vol. 3, p. 76.
5 Anon., ‘A True Character of the Prince of Wales's Poet’ (1701).
6 ‘A True Character of the Prince of Wales's Poet, with a Description of the new erected Folly at White-Hall’ (1701), MSS at Beinecke Library, Yale.
7 Given his noble birth and his employment under Dorset until Dorset resigned as Lord Chamberlain, the fact that Bertie was not invited to join the Kit-Cat Club tells us that connections alone were not enough: if one had no major electoral influence to exert, or patronage to dispense, one needed to be considered a writer of talent.
8 Madeleine Bingham, Masks and Façades: Sir John Vanbrugh, the Man and his Setting (London, 1974), p. 110.
9 Kerry Downes, Sir John Vanbrugh: A Biography (London, 1987), p. 163.
10 Edmund Gosse, Life of William Congreve (London, 1888), p. 96.
11 Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Prophaness of the English Stage (1698).
12 William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1693), Dedication to Charles Montagu.
13 Brean Hammond (ed.), John Vanbrugh: The Relapse and Other Plays (Oxford, 2004 edn), p. vii.
14 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée (eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 1, to the Earl of Manchester in Paris, 25 December 1699. Henley's marriage actually took place in February 1700.
15 John Macky, Characters of the Court of Queen Anne (1733); the satire was the anonymous Golden Age Revers'd (February 1703).
16 Bodleian, MS Carte 79, f.420.
17 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu quoted in George de Forest Lord et al. (eds), Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse 1660–1714 (New Haven, Conn., 1963–75), vol. 6, p. 629 n. 65.
18 Sarah Churchill to David Mallet, September 1744, quoted in: Sarah Churchill, The Private Correspondence of Sarah Duchess of Marlborough (London, 1838 edn), vol. 2, pp. 144 and 147.
19 Charles Davenant, England's Enemies Exposed (1701), in which Charles Montagu is ‘Tom Double’.
20 William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1693), Act 2, Scene 1.
21 John Vanbrugh, The Relapse (1696), Act 1, Scene 2.
22 William Shippen, Faction Display'd (1704).
23 Jonathan Swift, Mr C[olli]n's Discourse on Free-Thinking Put into plain English… (1713). Another religious conservative likewise answered Collins' discourse with The Vanity of Free-Thinking Expos'd in a Satyr, Dedicated to Mr C[olli]ns, Proprietor, and the rest of the Thoughtless Members of the Kitt-Katt Club (1713).
24 Dr John Arbuthnot, ‘Notes and Memorandums of the Six Days preceding the Death of the Late Right Reverend’, quoted in Richard I. Cook, Sir Samuel Garth (Boston, Mass., 1980), p. 38.
25 William Congreve, Amendments of Mr Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698).
26 Madeleine Bingham, Masks and Façades: Sir John Vanbrugh, the Man and his Setting (London, 1974), p. 319.
27 Sister Rose Anthony, The Jeremy Collier Stage Controversy 1698–1726 (Milwaukee, Wis., 1937), p. 99.
28 William Congreve, Amendments of Mr Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698).
29 D. Crane Taylor, William Congreve (London, 1931), p. 127.
30 There was a split within the Church between senior clerical figures (often Whig) and the more Tory lower orders, who were paradoxically known as ‘high flyers’ because of their beliefs: they preached ‘non-resistance’ to the monarchy (thereby denying legitimacy of the 1688 Revolution).
31 John Dennis, The Usefulness of the Stage to the Happiness of Mankind, to Government, and to Religion… (1698).
32 ‘Letter to Mr Congreve’, 30 August–1 September 1698 issue of The Post Man, p. 7.
33 John Dennis' poem ‘Sheltering Poet's Invitation to Richard Steele’ (1714) publicized to the man in the street the old open secret that Somers kept a married woman (Mrs Blount) as his mistress:
[Wine] makes even Somers to disclose his art
By racking every secret from his heart
As he flings off the statesman's sly disguise
To name the cuckold's wife with whom he lies.
34 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 1, no. 51, Saturday, 28 April 1711, by Steele.
35 Richard Steele, Apology for Himself and his Writings (1714).
36 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Richard Steele to William Congreve, 29 December 1713 (Dedication to Poetical Miscellanies, 1714).
37 Ibid., Congreve to Joseph Keally, 2 July 1700.
38 ‘Doris’ was published in Congreve's Collected Works (1710)—not clear when written. Steele's Dedication ‘To William Congreve’ in Poetical Miscellanies (1714) is in Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn).
39 Robert J. Allen, The Clubs of Augustan London (Cambridge, Mass., 1933), p. 236.
40 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 2, no. 203, Tuesday, 23 October 1711, by Addison.
41 Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), p. 437n.
42 Ibid., p. 426.
43 BL Add MSS 5,145B, f.290, Richard Steele to Mrs Manley.
44 A contemporary phrase of some complexity; see J. P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles (Cambridge, 1977).
45 HMC, Bath MSS, vol. 3, p. 394, The Prior Papers, Matthew Prior to Abraham Stanyan, 8/19 January 1700.
46 Ibid.
47 ‘Prologue by Sir John Falstaff’ reprinted in Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1700), vol. 2.
48 A Kit-Cat C—b Describ'd (1705), original MS at Harvard.
49 John Macky, A Journey Through England (1724), vol. 1.
50 HMC, Bath MSS, vol. 3, p. 394, The Prior Papers, Matthew Prior to Abraham Stanyan, 8/19 January 1700.
51 Tom Browne, Amusements Serious and Comical (1702), p. 50.
52 John Oldmixon lists Carbery as a Kit-Cat by 1700.
53 William Congreve, The Double Dealer (1703), Epilogue spoken by Mrs (Susanna) Mountford.
54 Congreve's Prologue to A Very Good Wife, quoted in D. Crane Taylor, William Congreve (London, 1931), p. 43.
55 ‘Prologue by Sir John Falstaff’ reprinted in Wit and Mirth: or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (1700), vol. 2.
56 Villiers Bathurst to Dr Charlett, 28 January 1700, quoted in Michael Ciletti, ‘The Kit-Cat Club’, MA Thesis, Penn State University, 1953, p. 46; John Genest (ed.), Some Account of the English Stage (Bath, 1832), vol. 2, p. 219.
57 Anon., The Patentee (1700).
58 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée
(eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, 4 vols (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 1, To the Earl of Manchester in Paris, 25 December 1699.
59 William Congreve, The Way of the World, Dedication to Ralph Earl of Montagu.
60 Ibid., Act 1, Scene 1.
61 Ibid., Act 4, Scene 1.
62 William Congreve, ‘Concerning Humour in Comedy’, essay written as a letter to John Dennis, 10 July 1695.
63 William Congreve, The Way of the World, Act 1, Scene 1.
64 Anon., Animadversions on Mr Congreve's Late Answer to Mr Collier (1698).
65 Tom Browne, Amusements Serious and Comical (1702), p. 51.
66 P. H. Highfill Jr et al. (eds), A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill., 1973–93); ‘On the Marriage of Mr Congreve to Mrs Bracegirdle’ (1702) in Martial Redevivus; Poems on Affairs of State (1707) also said that Congreve slept with his ‘Angellica’, ‘But at length the poor Nymph did for Justice implore, / Has married her now, tho he'd — her before.’
67 John Dennis in 1717, as quoted in Emmett L. Avery, Congreve's Plays on the Eighteenth-Century Stage (New York, 1951), p. 32.
68 ‘To Mr Congreve, Occasion'd by his Comedy, call'd The Way of the World, By Mr Steele’ (1700) in Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Occasional Verse of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1952).
69 Abigail Williams, Poetry and the Creation of a Whig Literary Culture 1681–1714 (Oxford, 2005), p. 33.
70 Tom Browne (ed.), Commendatory Verses, on the Author of the Two Arthurs, and the Satyr against Wit (1700). Browne satirized both Dryden and Blackmore in various different works. Other possible Kit-Cat contributors to this anti-Blackmore collection include Richard Norton and Anthony Henley.
71 Henry Playford and Abel Roper (eds), Luctus Britannici, or, the Tears of the British Muses for the Death of John Dryden, Esq. (1700).
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