on, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and the minor
poets, we are not at all surprised to find Sir Robert Walpole, the Duke
of Somerset, Halifax, and Somers.

Halifax was, _par excellence_, the Maecenas of his day, and Pope
described him admirably in the character of Bufo:--

'Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill,
Sat full-blown Bufo, puff'd by every quill;
_Fed with soft dedication_ all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.'

The dedications poured in thickly. Steele, Tickell, Philips, Smith, and
a crowd of lesser lights, raised my lord each one on a higher pinnacle;
and in return the powerful minister was not forgetful of the douceur
which well-tuned verses were accustomed to receive. He himself had tried
to be a poet, and in 1703 wrote verses for the toasting-cups of the
Kit-kat. His lines to a Dowager Countess of ----, are good enough to
make us surprised that he never wrote any better. Take a specimen:--

'Fair Queen of Fop-land in her royal style;
Fop-land the greatest part of this great isle!
Nature did ne'er so equally divide
A female heart 'twixt piety and pride:
Her waiting-maids prevent the peep of day,
And all in order at her toilet lay
Prayer-books, patch-boxes, sermon-notes, and paint,
At once t'improve the sinner and the saint.'

A Maecenas who paid for his dedications was sure to be well spoken of,
and Halifax has been made out a wit and a poet, as well as a clever
statesman. Halifax got his earldom and the garter from George I., and
died, after enjoying them less than a year, in 1715.

Chancellor Somers, with whom Halifax was associated in the impeachment
case in 1701, was a far better man in every respect. His was probably
the purest character among those of all the members of the Kit-kat. He
was the son of a Worcester attorney, and born in 1652. He was educated
at Trinity, Oxford, and rose purely by merit, distinguishing himself at
the bar and on the bench, unwearied in his application to business, and
an exact and upright judge. At school he was a terribly good boy,
keeping to his book in play-hours. Throughout life his habits were
simple and regular, and his character unblemished. He slept but little,
and in later years had a reader to attend him at waking. With such
habits he can scarcely have been a constant attender at the club; and as
he died a bachelor, it would be curious to learn what ladies he selected
for his toasts. In his la