supposed sign of the Cat and Fiddle (Kitt), gave another solution, but
after all, Pope's may be satisfactorily received.

The Kit-kat was, _par excellence_, the Whig Club of Queen Anne's time:
it was established at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and was
then composed of thirty-nine members, among whom were the Dukes of
Marlborough, Devonshire, Grafton, Richmond, and Somerset. In later days
it numbered the greatest wits of the age, of whom anon.

This club was celebrated more than any for its _toasts_.

Now, if men must drink--and sure the vine was given us for use, I do not
say for abuse--they had better make it an occasion of friendly
intercourse; nothing can be more degraded than the solitary
sanctimonious toping in which certain of our northern brethren are known
to indulge. They had better give to the quaffing of that rich gift, sent
to be a medicine for the mind, to raise us above the perpetual
contemplation of worldly ills, as much of romance and elegance as
possible. It is the opener of the heart, the awakener of nobler feelings
of generosity and love, the banisher of all that is narrow, and sordid,
and selfish; the herald of all that is exalted in man. No wonder that
the Greeks made a god of Bacchus, that the Hindu worshipped the mellow
Soma, and that there has been scarce a poet who has not sung its praise.
There was some beauty in the feasts of the Greeks, when the goblet was
really wreathed with flowers; and even the German student, dirty and
drunken as he may be, removes half the stain from his orgies with the
rich harmony of his songs, and the hearty good-fellowship of his toasts.
We drink still, perhaps we shall always drink till the end of time, but
all the romance of the bowl is gone; the last trace of its beauty went
with the frigid abandonment of the toast.