36 Fran Beauman, The Pineapple: King of Fruits (London, 2005), pp. 88–9.
37 When Mrs Walpole criticized her for flirting with Wharton, Dolly moved to live at the Whartons'—an even greater public embarrassment. Walpole had a few hard words with Lady Wharton for having allowed the girl to move in, but since Mrs Walpole would not receive her back, Dolly was sent to stay with the Townshends. This seems to have led Dolly into another romance, as she later married Townshend after his first wife's death.
38 Mary Astell, Bart'lemy Fair (1709).
39 Fourth Earl of Chesterfield, quoted in Julian Hoppit, A Land of Liberty? England 1689–1727 (Oxford, 2000), p. 398.
40 Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Hayton, The House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge, 2002), vol. 5, entry on James Stanhope, p. 542.
41 Spencer Compton was one of the youngest Kit-Cats whom John Oldmixon lists as a founder member. In 1697, he had no parliamentary seat, though he would shortly afterwards be returned for Eye in Suffolk.
42 BL Add MS 70,501, 18 August 1705, Lord Somers to the Duke of Newcastle.
43 Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Hayton, The House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge, 2002), vol. 5, entry on John Smith, p. 502.
44 Quoted in J. A. Manning, Lives of the Speakers of the House of Commons (London, 1850), p. 410.
45 W. A. Speck, The Birth of Britain: A New Nation 1700–1710 (Oxford, 1994), p. 94.
46 Abel Boyer, History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne (1722), pp. 217–18.
47 Ibid.
48 Brice Harris, Charles Sackville, 6th Earl of Dorset: Patron and Poet of the Restoration (Urbana, Ill., 1940), p. 222.
49 Vita Sackville-West, Knole and the Sackvilles (London, 1922), p. 141.
50 Erasmus Lewis (Stepney's cousin) to George Stepney, 17 October 1704, quoted in C. K. Eves, Matthew Prior, Poet and Diplomatist (New York, 1939), p. 193 n. 32.
51 Robert Sackville-West, Knole (London, 1998), p. 75.
52 C. K. Eves, Matthew Prior, Poet and Diplomatist (New York, 1939), p. 193.
53 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 5, no. 6, Dedication ‘To William Honeycomb Esq.’.
54 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Congreve to Joe Keally, 8 June 1706.
55 Montague Collection, Box 7—Charles Montagu from Hanover, 4 June 1706.
56 Peter Smithers, The Life of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 2nd edn 1968), p. 110.
57 Ibid.
58 Montague Collection, Box 7—Charles Montagu from Hanover, 4 June 1706.
59 Ibid.
XI UNEASY UNIONS: 1707
1 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Congreve to Joe Keally, 30 April 1706.
2 Robert Walpole was another Commissioner who missed most of the negotiations because of pressing business in Norfolk.
3 William L. Sachse, Lord Somers: A Political Portrait (Manchester, 1975), p. 248, Somers to Lord Marchmont, 23 July 1706.
4 P. W. J. Riley, The Union of England and Scotland: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics in the 18th Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 189.
5 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 52, Addison to Stepney, 3 September 1706.
6 Ibid., no. 53, Addison to Stepney, 8 November 1706.
7 Sir John Clerk of Penicuik quoted in Daniel Szechi, ‘A Union of Necessity’, Parliamentary History (Edinburgh, 1996), vol. 15, part 3, p. 400.
8 A rumour spread, however, that Wharton had privately berated Godolphin for not surrendering more offices to the Junto Whigs as thanks for their support over the union, suggesting Wharton's motives were more self-interested than patriotic; Wharton's willingness to consider a later 1713 proposal that the union be dissolved, when he thought it would embarrass his enemies, lends some credence to this charge of opportunism.
9 P. W. J. Riley, The Union of England and Scotland: A Study in Anglo-Scottish Politics in the 18th Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 301.
10 James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Seafield, for example, asked Godolphin whether he could correspond directly with Somers and Sunderland, since he was unsure whether the men ‘who treated with us’ were friends to each other. Add MSS 28,055, f.338, James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Seafield and Lord Chancellor of Scotland, to Sidney Godolphin, 11 November 1706.
11 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 58, Addison to Emanuel Scrope Howe, Envoy Extraordinary to Hanover, 3 December 1706.
12 Ibid., no. 75, Addison to Jean Le Clerc, 23 May 1707.
13 Ibid., no. 63, Addison to Stepney, 27 December 1706.
14 Ibid., no. 68, Addison to Newton, Envoy Extraordinary at Florence.
15 Thomas D'Urfey, Wonders in the Sun; or, the Kingdom of the Birds (1706); Charles Burney, A General History of Music (London, 1776–89), vol. 2, p. 657: statement that members of the Kit-Cat Club contributed lyrics to many of the songs in the opera; John Diprose, Some Account of the Parish of St. Clement Danes (London, 1868), vol. 1, pp. 262–3: on Wonders in the Sun, in which ‘many of the most distinguished wits of that celebrated body [the Kit-Cat Club] having assisted their old favourite in writing the songs in it’.
16 Richard Steele, The Muses Mercury, 25 January 1707.
17 Brean Hammond notes that on 2 April 1706, ten days before the trip to Hanover, Addison presented a first draft of Rosamund to Sarah Churchill (now in the Houghton Library, Harvard), which does not mention stage scenery.
18 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Congreve to Joe Keally, 10 September 1706.
19 Eric Walter White, The Rise of English Opera (London, 1951), p. 142.
20 Richard Steele, The Muses Mercury, 15 January 1707.
21 Edmund Smith, Phaedra and Hippolitus (1707); Eric Walter White, The Rise of English Opera (London, 1951), p. 143.
22 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (London, 1996 edn), p. 12.
23 Richard Steele, Mr Steele's Apology for himself and his writings (1714), in Rae Blanchard (ed.), Tracts and Pamphlets by Richard Steele (Baltimore, Md., 1944), p. 339.
24 Richard Steele, The Funeral (1701), Act 4, Scene 3.
25 Mr Cat's shop may have sold his pastries in similar fashion—a character in Steele's The Funeral tells some soldiers there is plenty of work to be found in London, shouting ‘Puff—Puff Pies!’
26 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 2, no. 251, Tuesday, 18 December 1711, by Addison; Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), no. 9.
27 Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), no. 263, Steele to Mary, 19 May 1708.
28 Nichols (editor of The Tatler in 1786) claimed to have heard this from a printer Richard Nutt. Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 3, p. 162 n. 1.
29 Ibid., vol. 4, no. 576, Wednesday, 4 August 1714, by Addison.
30 John Dennis quoted in William Makepeace Thackeray, English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1853).
31 BL Add MS 5,145A, Date missing from MSS—only ‘1707’ remains. Blanchard's Correspondence dates it (no. 208) to 11 August (?) 1707.
32 Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), no. 212, Mary to her mother asking permission to marry Steele, 16 August 1707.
33 BL Add MS 5,145A, Steele to Mary, 1707 (Blanchard no. 215).
34 Ibid., Steele to Mary, late August 1707 (Blanchard no. 216).
35 Ibid., Steele to Mary, late August 1707 (Blanchard no. 217).
36 Ibid., Steele to Mary, 30 August 1707 (Blanchard no. 221).
37 Ibid., Steele to Mary, 1 September 1707 (Blanchard no. 223).
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Elizabeth Scurlock, 3 September 1707 (Blanchard no. 226).
40 Blanchard, no. 254 and no. 255, for example.
41 Add MS 5,145A, Steele to Mrs Steele, 8 p.m., 22 October 1707, from the Fountain tave
rn.
42 Three years later, Steele would still be arguing with the Tories about his belief in using the name of ‘Great Britain’. See Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella, 2 December 1710.
43 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 93, Addison to Lord Manchester, 1707. The new Parliament contained forty-five Scottish MPs and sixteen Scottish elected peers. These figures may not have reflected proportional representation (which would have given Scotland 103 MPs) but were a generous reflection of the ratio in the amounts the two populations paid in taxation (five to one).
44 Note possible but unverifiable connection between this story and Blanchard no. 263: Steele to Mrs Steele, 11 a.m., 19 May 1708.
45 John Nichols quoting Mr Thomas, grandson of Mrs Aynston, in the 1780s. See BL Add MS 5,145B, and Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), p. 271 n. 2.
46 The Postboy, Tuesday, 4 November 1707.
XII BESET
1 BL Add MS 46,535, George Stepney to Robert Sutton, 2nd Lord Lexinton, 18 March (NS) 1707.
2 Susan Spens, George Stepney 1663–1707: Diplomat and Poet (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 314–15.
3 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 52, Addison to Stepney, 3 September 1706.
4 Ibid., no. 84, Addison to Christian Cole (Secretary to Lord Manchester), 16 September 1707.
5 William Drogo Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne (London, 1864), vol. 2, p. 253, Joseph Addison to Mr Cole, 7 October 1707.
6 BL Add MS 7,121, Letters to Lord Halifax (1706ff.), f.49, Matthew Prior to Halifax, 1707.
7 Robert Molesworth to Lord Shaftesbury, PRO 30/24/20/137, 18 December 1707.
8 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Congreve to Joe Keally, 29 January 1708. Alexander Pope's reference (to Joseph Spence) to a time when the Kit-Cat ‘broke up’ probably refers to this suspension for political reasons, not the final demise of the Club.
9 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 102, Addison to Lord Manchester, 7 February 1708.
10 Harry Boyle replaced Harley, allowing Jack Smith to step into the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Walpole replaced St John as Secretary-at-War.
11 Eveline Cruickshanks, Stuart Handley and D. W. Hayton, The House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge, 2002), Entry on Jack Smith MP, p. 504.
12 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 103, Addison to Lord Manchester, February 1708.
13 Ibid., no. 106, Addison to Lord Manchester, 27 February 1708.
14 HMC, Downshire MSS, vol. 1, part 2, p. 858, Rev. Ralph Bridges to Sir William Trumbull.
15 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 109, Addison to Lord Manchester, 5 March 1708.
16 Abel Boyer, History of the Life and Reign of Queen Anne (1722).
17 John Oldmixon, Memoirs of the Life of the Most Noble Thomas, Late Marquess of Wharton; with his Speeches in Parliament both in England and Ireland. To which is added His Lordship's Character by Sir Richard Steele (1715).
18 Ibid.
19 John C. Hodges (ed.), William Congreve: Letters and Documents (London, 1964), Congreve to Joe Keally, 29 November 1708.
20 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée (eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 9, Vanbrugh to Lord Manchester, 24 February 1708.
21 John Vanbrugh to Thomas Coke quoted in Kerry Downes, Sir John Vanbrugh: A Biography (London, 1987), p. 327.
22 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 87, Addison to Lord Manchester, 7 October 1707.
23 After Sweeney's return, the licences were amended so the Queen's Theatre could stage both plays and operas, though the resultant company mixing actors and singers was never a peaceful one. Steele complained on 7 October 1708: ‘The Taste for Plays is expired. We are all for Operas, performed by eunuchs every way impotent to please.’ Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), p. 46, no. 26.
24 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée (eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 14, Vanbrugh to Lord Manchester, 27 July 1708; William Drogo Montagu, 7th Duke of Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne (London, 1864), vol. 2, p. 383, Vanbrugh to Manchester, 17 August 1708, postscript saying that London needs a good lead violinist more than a composer, and expecting arrival of Nicolini.
25 Joseph Spence, Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, ed. James M. Osborn (Oxford, 1966 edn), no. 122.
26 Colley Cibber, An Apology for the Life of Mr Colley Cibber (1740), ed. B. R. S. Fone (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1968), p. 183.
27 Richard Steele, The Muses Mercury, April 1707.
28 James Thomson quoted in James Sambrook, James Thomson (1700–1748): A Life (Oxford, 1991), p. 28. Nancy remained Maynwaring's mistress until he died, bearing him a son, also named Arthur. Though he never married her, Nancy and the boy were provided for in Maynwaring's will.
29 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée (eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 7, Vanbrugh to Lord Manchester, 18 July 1707; Frank McCormick, Sir John Vanbrugh: The Playwright as Architect (University Park, Pa., 1991), p. 135.
30 Geoffrey Webb and Bonamy Dobrée (eds), The Complete Works of Sir John Vanbrugh, 4 vols (London, 1927–8), vol. 4, no. 14, Vanbrugh to Lord Manchester, 27 July 1708.
31 Ibid., no. 15, 17 August 1708, Vanbrugh to Lord Manchester.
32 HMC, Portland MSS, vol. 4, p. 493, Erasmus Lewis to Robert Harley, 17 June 1708.
33 Ibid.
34 Walter Graham (ed.), The Letters of Joseph Addison (Oxford, 1941), no. 129, To [?], Thursday, 15 July 1708.
35 BL Add MS 40,060, f.74, no date but two additional verses added at the end dated July 1708. Topham is usually listed among the members of the Kit-Cat Club on the evidence of this manuscript alone.
36 BL Add MS 40,060, f.69b, ‘Toast of Great Britain for the year 1708’.
37 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 4, no. 448, Monday, 4 August 1712, by Steele.
38 Ibid., no. 280, Monday, 21 January 1712, by Steele.
39 In February 1708, for example, Steele wrote home to his wife from the Tonsons' shop at Gray's Inn Gate: ‘If the man who has my Shoemaker's bill calls, let Him be answered that I shall call on Him as I come home. I stay Here in Order to get Tonson to discount a Bill for me and shall dine with Him for that end.’ Rae Blanchard (ed.), The Correspondence of Richard Steele (Oxford, 1968 edn), no. 258, Steele to Mrs Steele, 3 February 1708. In this note, Steele addresses his wife Mary as ‘Dear Prue’ (the first time is in a letter of 3 January 1708), the pet name he continued to use through the rest of their married lives. ‘Prudence’ means modesty in several of Steele's writings. In an early love letter, he complimented Mary on ‘Prudent Youth and becoming Piety’ (ibid., no. 211, Steele to Mary, 16 August 1707; no. 241, Steele to Mrs Steele, 13 October 1707). In another, however, he referred to Mrs Keck, a friend of his wife's, as a ‘great Prue’ and from the context it is clear he meant she was a sexual and moral prude (ibid., no. 563, Steele to Lady Steele, 24 June 1717). BL Add MS 5,145A and 5,145B.
40 Dedication ‘To the Right Honorable Charles Lord Halifax’ (7 April 1711) in the collected Tatler, vol. 4, quoted in Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), vol. 1, pp. 12–14.
41 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), vol. 3, no. 225, Saturday, 16 September 1710.
42 Dr Birch quoted in a note on the 1789 edition of The Tatler, and from thence by Samuel Johnson, Lives of the English Poets (1781), ed. George Birkbeck Hill (Oxford, 1905 edn), vol. 2, entry on Addison.
43 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 3, no. 293, Tuesday, 5 February 1712, by Addison.
44 Richard Steele, The Christian Hero (1701).
45 BL Add MS 5
,145A, Steele to Mrs Steele, 8 October 1708 (Blanchard no. 306).
46 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 12 August 1708 (Blanchard no. 307, nos 281 and 282 are replies to Mrs Steele which suggest that she was writing angry notes to him complaining that he excluded her from their business, etc.).
47 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 20 October 1708 (Blanchard no. 313).
48 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 13 October 1708 (Blanchard no. 308).
49 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 30 November 1708 (Blanchard no. 329).
50 Michael Foot, The Pen and the Sword (London, 1957), p. 32.
51 BL Add MS 40,060, f.81: ‘On Mr Hopkins; and Topham, made at the Du[c]h[ess] of Marl[borough's] by Mr Manne, November 1708 (to the tune of a French ditty)’.
52 Mary Astell, Bart'lemy Fair (1709).
53 Richard Blackmore, The Kit-Cats, A Poem (1708).
54 BL Add MS 5,145A, Steele to Mrs Steele, 16 November 1708 (Blanchard no. 324).
55 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 6 December 1708 (Blanchard no. 331).
56 Donald F. Bond (ed.), The Spectator (Oxford, 1965), vol. 2, no. 214, Monday, 5 November 1711, by Steele.
57 BL Add MS 32,685, Letters of the Duke of Newcastle, 25 May 1715.
58 Horace Walpole quoted in John F. Sena, The Best-Natured Man: Sir Samuel Garth, Physician and Poet (New York, 1986), p. 128.
59 BL Add MS 5,145A, Steele to Mrs Steele, 5 February 1709 (Blanchard no. 340).
60 Ibid., Steele to Mrs Steele, 19 April 1709 (Blanchard no. 345).
61 BL Add MS 7,121, Letters to Lord Halifax (1706ff.), f.69, Steele to Halifax, 26 January 1710.
62 Edward (Ned) Ward, The Secret History of Clubs (1709).
63 Mary Astell, Bart'lemy Fair (1709).
64 Donald F. Bond, The Tatler (Oxford, 1987), vol. 3, no. 202, Tuesday, 25 July 1710.
65 The Examiner, no. 6.
66 BL Add MS 5,145, Steele to Mrs Steele, 5 May 1709 (Blanchard no. 349).
67 Ibid., Steele to Charles Montagu, 6 October 1709 (Blanchard no. 31); BL Add MS 7,121, Letters to Lord Halifax (1706ff.), f.67, Steele to Halifax, 6 December (or October?) 1709.
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