he tribe of Ben" must have often discussed the
downfall of Lord Bacon, the poisoning of Overbury, the war in the
Palatinate, and the murder of Buckingham; so in Shire Lane, opposite,
the talk must have run on Marlborough's victories, Jacobite plots, and
the South-Sea Bubble; Addison must have discussed Swift, and Steele
condemned the littleness of Pope. It was the custom of this aristocratic
club every year to elect some reigning beauty as a toast. To the queen
of the year the gallant members wrote epigrammatic verses, which were
etched with a diamond on the club glasses. The most celebrated of these
toasts were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough--Lady
Godolphin, Lady Sunderland (generally known as "the Little Whig"), Lady
Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer. Swift's friend, Mrs. Long, was
another; and so was a niece of Sir Isaac Newton. The verses seem flat
and dead now, like flowers found between the leaves of an old book; but
in their time no doubt they had their special bloom and fragrance. The
most tolerable are those written by Lord Halifax on "the Little Whig":--

"All nature's charms in Sunderland appear,
Bright as her eyes and as her reason clear;
Yet still their force, to man not safely known,
Seems undiscovered to herself alone."

Yet how poor after all is this laboured compliment in comparison to a
sentence of Steele's on some lady of rank whose virtues he
honoured,--"that even to have known her was in itself a liberal
education."

But few stories connected with the Kit-Kat meetings are to be dug out of
books, though no doubt many snatches of the best conversation are
embalmed in the _Spectator_ and the _Tatler_. Yet Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu, whom Pope first admired and then reviled, tells one pleasant
incident of her childhood that connects her with the great club.

One evening when toasts were being chosen, her father, Evelyn Pierpoint,
Duke of Kingston, took it into his head to nominate Lady Mary, then a
child only eight years of age. She was prettier, he vowed, than any
beauty on the list. "You shall see her," cried the duke, and instantly
sent a chaise for her. Presently she came ushered in, dressed in her
best, and was elected by acclamation. The Whig gentlemen drank the
little lady's health up-standing and, feasting her with sweetmeats and
passing her round with kisses, at once inscribed her name with a diamond
on a drinking-glass. "Pleasure," she says, "was too poor a wor