election and change of ministry: and literary resorts
such as the Grecian, where, as we are told, a fatal duel was provoked by
a dispute over a Greek accent, in which, let us hope, it was the worst
scholar who was killed; and Wills', where Pope as a boy went to look
reverently at Dryden; and Buttons', where, at a later period, Addison
met his little senate. Addison, according to Pope, spent five or six
hours a day lounging at Buttons'; while Pope found the practice and the
consequent consumption of wine too much for his health. Thackeray
notices how the club and coffee-house 'boozing shortened the lives and
enlarged the waistcoats of the men of those days.' The coffee-house
implied the club, while the club meant simply an association for
periodical gatherings. It was only by degrees that the body made a
permanent lodgment in the house and became first the tenants of the
landlord and then themselves the proprietors. The most famous show the
approximation between the statesmen and the men of letters. There was
the great Kit-cat Club, of which Tonson the bookseller was secretary; to
which belonged noble dukes and all the Whig aristocracy, besides
Congreve, Vanbrugh, Addison, Garth, and Steele. It not only brought
Whigs together but showed its taste by giving a prize for good comedies.
Swift, when he came into favour, helped to form the Brothers' Club,
which was especially intended to direct patronage towards promising
writers of the Tory persuasion. The institution, in modern slang,
differentiated as time went on. The more aristocratic clubs became
exclusive societies, occupying their own houses, more devoted to
gambling than to literature; while the older type, represented by
Jonson's famous club, were composed of literary and professional
classes.

The characteristic fraternisation of the politicians and the authors
facilitated by this system leads to the critical point. When we speak of
the nobility patronising literature, a reserve must be made. A list of
some twenty or thirty names has been made out, including all the chief
authors of the time, who received appointments of various kinds. But I
can only find two, Congreve and Rowe, upon whom offices were bestowed
simply as rewards for literary distinction; and both of them were sound
Whigs, rewarded by their party, though not for party services. The
typical patron of the day was Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax. As member
of a noble family he came into Parliament, where h