pretend to say, but she certainly spent as much as a miser could on
litigation, Van himself being one of the unfortunates she attacked in
this way.

The events of Vanbrugh's life were varied. He began life in the army,
but in 1697 gave the stage 'The Relapse.' It was sufficiently
successful to induce him to follow it up with the 'Provoked Wife,' one
of the wittiest pieces produced in those days. Charles, Earl of
Carlisle, Deputy Earl Marshal, for whom he built Castle Howard, made
him Clarencieux King-at-arms in 1704, and he was knighted by George
I., 9th of September, 1714. In 1705 he joined Congreve in the
management of the Haymarket, which he himself built. George I. made
him Comptroller-general of the royal works. He had even an experience
of the Bastille, where he was confined for sketching fortifications in
France. He died in 1726, with the reputation of a good wit, and a bad
architect. His conversation was, certainly, as light as his buildings
were heavy.

Another member, almost as well known in his day, was Sir Samuel Garth,
the physician, 'well-natured Garth,' as Pope called him. He won his fame
by his satire on the apothecaries in the shape of a poem called 'The
Dispensary.' When delivering the funeral oration over Dryden's body,
which had been so long unburied that its odour began to be disagreeable,
he mounted a tub, the top of which fell through and left the doctor in
rather an awkward position. He gained admission to the Kit-kat in
consequence of a vehement eulogy on King William which he had introduced
into his Harveian oration in 1697.[13] It was Garth, too, who
extemporized most of the verses which were inscribed on the
toasting-glasses of their club, so that he may, _par excellence_, be
considered the Kit-kat poet. He was the physician and friend of