a series of most indecent acts at the Cock Tavern in Bow-street, where
Sedley, in 'birthday attire,' made a blasphemous oration from the
balcony of the house. In later years he was the pride of the poets:
Dryden and Prior, Wycherley, Hudibras, and Rymer, were all encouraged by
him, and repaid him with praises. Pope and Dr. King were no less
bountiful in their eulogies of this Mæcenas. His conversation was so
much appreciated that gloomy William III. chose him as his companion, as
merry Charles had done before. The famous Irish ballad, which my Uncle
Toby was always humming, 'Lillibullero bullen-a-lah,' but which Percy
attributes to the Marquis of Wharton, another member of the Kit-kat, was
said to have been written by Buckhurst. He retained his wit to the last;
and Congreve, who visited him when he was dying, said, 'Faith, he
stutters more wit than other people have in their best health.' He died
at Bath in 1706.

Buckhurst does not complete the list of conspicuous members of this
club, but the remainder were less celebrated for their wit. There was
the Duke of Kingston, the father of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu;
Granville, who imitated Waller, and attempted to make his 'Myra' as
celebrated as the court-poet's Saccharissa, who, by the way, was the
mother of the Earl of Sunderland; the Duke of Devonshire, whom Walpole
calls 'a patriot among the men, a gallant among the ladies,' and who
founded Chatsworth; and other noblemen, chiefly belonging to the latter
part of the seventeenth century, and all devoted to William III., though
they had been bred at the courts of Charles and James.

With such an array of wits, poets, statesmen, and gallants, it can
easily be believed that to be the toast of the Kit-kat was no slight
honour; to be a member of it a still greater one; and to be one of its
most distinguished, as Congreve was, the greatest. Let us now see what