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Home  »  Complete Poetical Works by Alexander Pope  »  Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club

Alexander Pope (1688–1744). Complete Poetical Works. 1903.

Poems: 1713–17

Epigram on the Toasts of the Kit-Cat Club

Anno 1716

WHENCE deathless ‘Kit-cat’ took its name,

Few critics can unriddle:

Some say from ‘Pastrycook’ it came,

And some, from ‘cat’ and ‘fiddle.’

From no trim Beaux its name it boasts,

Gray Statesmen, or green wits;

But from this pellmell pack of Toasts

Of old ‘cats’ and young ‘kits.’