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.