"Even her amours," says Chetwood in treating of Mistress Oldfield, "seemed to lose that glare which appears round the persons of the failing fair; neither was it ever known that she troubled the repose of any lady's lawful claim; and was far more constant than millions in the conjugal noose." Being thus acquitted of predatory designs upon the peace of English wives, and having the further virtue of constancy, a host of Londoners, men and women, high and low alike, gazed with charitable eyes upon Nance's private life. And she, dear girl, sinned on joyously.
Mr. Maynwaring, who helped Oldfield to break the spirit of one commandment, was a brilliant figure in the reign of Queen Anne, albeit, like other brilliant figures of that period, he has passed into the darkness of oblivion. A clever dabbler in literature, an honest politician—a politician with scruples was as rare in those days as he is now—and a man of honour who could drink as much as his friends, the volatile Arthur was, perhaps, best known as the most attractive talker of the famous Kit-Cat Club. The Kit-Cat Club! What a wealth of anecdote doth its name conjure up to the student of the past! 'Twas in this famous organisation that noblemen and wits met on common ground, drank many a toast to the House of Hanover or to some reigning belle of London town, and exercised a patronising censorship over the world of letters. They were "the patriots that saved Briton," says Horace Walpole, in referring to their anti-Jacobitism, and yet the most of them are forgotten.
If tradition is to be believed (and what siren is more comfortable to hearken unto than tradition?) these self-same patriots took their name of "Kit-Cats" from prosaic mutton pies. 'Twould be horrible to think on this gastronomic derivation of the title were we not to remember, quite fortunately, that geese saved classic Rome. Why, therefore, should not the preservers of perfidious Albion suggest the aroma of a lamb pasty?
It seems that the Club had its first headquarters in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar, at the establishment of Christopher Cat, a pastrycook who helped to enliven the inner man by delicious meat pies dubbed "Kit-Cats." Hence the name of that notable coterie of Whigs which included Addison and Dick Steele, Congreve and His Grace of Devonshire.[A]
[Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself is said to have taken its original from a mutton pie. The Beef-Steak and October clubs are neither of them averse to eating and drinking, if we may form a judgment of them from their respective titles.—ADDISON in the Spectator.]
Maynwaring came of good English stock, and in early life showed the results of his relationship to the aristocratic house of Cholmondeley by supporting the lost cause of James II. So fervent an admirer was he of that apology for royalty that he took up the pen, if not the sword, in his behalf, and steeped the mightier weapon with satirical ink when he wrote a pamphlet entitled "The King of Hearts." Rumour paid to the young author an unintentional compliment by insisting that the brochure came from the great Mr. Dryden, but that genius denied the soft impeachment while gracefully praising the unknown writer.
This pursuit of Jacobitism was varied by the study of law—a study "sometimes relieved with a temporary application to music and poetry"—and when the disconsolate Arthur had lost his father, and thereby gained 800 pounds a year, he drowned his sorrows by an almost exclusive devotion to "society and pleasantry." We are told[A] that on the ratification of the Peace of Ryswick he went to Paris, where he was exceedingly well received in consequence of the numerous introductory letters which had been furnished him from various quarters. He there contracted an intimacy with Boileau,—
"Whose rash envy would allow
No strain that shamed his country's creaking lyre,
That whetstone of the teeth, monotony in wire."
[Footnote A: "Memoirs of the Celebrated Persons comprising the Kit-Cat
Club.">[
"The French poet invited Maynwaring to his country seat, where he behaved to him in a very hospitable manner, and frequently conversed with him respecting the merits of our English poets, of whom, however, he affected to know but little, and for whom he pretended to care still less. Monsieur de la Fontaine was also at times one of their company, and always spoke in very respectful terms of the poetry of the sister nation. Boileau's pretending to be ignorant of Dryden 'argued himself unknown'; but, perhaps, another reason may be assigned why the French writers found it convenient to know as little as possible of their English contemporary, who in many of his admirable prefaces and dedications has taken some trouble to explain the frivolity of the French poets, their tiresome petit maître-ship, and all the finessing and trick with which they endeavour to make amends to their readers for positive deficiency of genius."