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EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB [ ] ANNO 1716 - Alexander Pope, The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope [1903]

Edition used:

The Complete Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Cambridge Edition, ed. Henry W. Boynton (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903).

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EPIGRAM ON THE TOASTS OF THE KIT-CAT CLUB[ ]

ANNO 1716

    • Whence deathless ‘Kit-cat’ took its name,
    • Few critics can unriddle:
    • Some say from ‘Pastrycook’ it came,
    • And some, from ‘cat’ and ‘fiddle.’
    • From no trim Beaux its name it boasts,
    • Gray Statesmen, or green wits;
    • But from this pellmell pack of Toasts
    • Of old ‘cats’ and young ‘kits.’

[Page 106.]Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-cat Club.

The Kit-cat Club, named for Christopher Katt, a pastry-cook, numbered among its members most of the town wits, including Steele and Addison.