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.