' as his toast. The other members, who had never seen
her, objected; the Peer sent for her, and there could no longer be any
question. The forward little girl was handed from knee to knee, petted,
probably, by Addison, Congreve, Vanbrugh, Garth, and many another famous
wit. Another celebrated toast of the Kit-kat, mentioned by Walpole, was
Lady Molyneux, who, he says, died smoking a pipe.

This club was no less celebrated for its portraits than for the ladies
it honoured. They, the portraits, were all painted by Kneller, and all
of one size, which thence got the name of Kit-kat; they were hung round
the club-room. Jacob Tonson, the publisher, was secretary to the club.

Defoe tells us the Kit-kat held the first rank among the clubs of the
early part of the last century, and certainly the names of its members
comprise as many wits as we could expect to find collected in one
society.

Addison must have been past forty when he became a member of the
Kit-kat. His 'Cato' had won him the general applause of the Whig party,
who could not allow so fine a writer to slip from among them. He had
long, too, played the courtier, and was 'quite a gentleman.' A place
among the exclusives of the Kit-kat was only the just reward of such
attainments, and he had it. I shall not be asked to give a notice of a
man so universally known, and one who ranks rather with the humorists
than the wits. It will suffice to say, that it was not till _after_ the
publication of the 'Spectator,' and some time after, that he joined our
society.

Congreve I have chosen out of this set for a separate life, for this man
happens to present a very average sample of all their peculiarities.
Congreve was a literary man, a poet, a wit, a beau, and--what unhappily
is quite as much to the purpose--a profligate. The only point he,
therefore, wanted in common with most of the members, was a title; but
few of the titled members combined as many good and bad qualities of the
Kit-kat kind as did William Congreve.

Another dramatist, whose name seems to be inseparable from Congreve's,
was that mixture of bad and good taste--Vanbrugh. The author of 'The
Relapse,' the most licentious play ever acted;--the builder of Blenheim,
the ugliest house ever erected, was a man of good family, and Walpole
counts him among those who 'wrote genteel comedy, because they lived in
the best company.' We doubt the logic of this; but if it hold, how is it
that Van wrote plays which the b