Demonstrates that forms of address clearly distinguished between the ranks of patrons of the Kit Cat Club--founded in 1700 by Jacob Tonson to bring together men of the new professions--and the broker (Tonson), and that certain poets accorded Tonson the same linguistic terms of politeness they used to address their patrons. Pragmatic analysis of their modal language reveals their linguistic acknowledgement of the position of power occupied by Tonson. (Author/VWL)