ROYAL PATRONAGE.
The ten sovereigns whom Kneller painted were the following: Charles II., James II., and his queen, William and Mary, Anne, George I., Louis XIV., the Czar Peter the Great, and the Emperor Charles VI.
DR. RADCLIFFE.
Sir Godfrey, when living next door to the famous Dr. Radcliffe, granted him permission to make a door into the painter’s garden, where there was a beautiful variety of flowers. But the physician’s servants taking unbecoming liberties on Kneller’s premises, he had to complain to their master. After many fruitless remonstrances Sir Godfrey sent his man one day to let the physician know that he should be obliged to brick up the passage; to which the cynic replied, with his accustomed asperity, “Let him do what he will with the door, except painting it.” The servant was at first unwilling to communicate the exact answer, but Kneller insisted on knowing it, and retorted, “Did my good friend say so? Then you go back and tell him that I will take anything from him but his physic.”
ORIGIN OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB.
This club is said to have been founded by Jacob Tonson, the bookseller. However this may have been, he was certainly their secretary. He was an active man at all their meetings, and as a testimony of the good disposition of his illustrious friends towards him, they each presented him with their portraits. These were painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The club is reported to have derived its title from the name of the person at whose house the meetings were first held. This was one Christopher Cat, an obscure pastry-cook, who lived originally in Shire Lane, Temple Bar, but subsequently at the Fountain Tavern, Strand. The standing dish at supper was mutton pies: for the manufacture of which Mr. Cat had acquired considerable reputation. A different etymology of the club’s name has been assigned by Arbuthnot. In the following epigram, he seems to refer it to the custom of toasting ladies after dinner, peculiar to those gentlemen:—
“Whence deathless Kit-Cat took its name,
Few critics can unriddle;
Some say from pastry-cook it came,
And some from cat and fiddle.