September 24, 1717

Horace Walpole, (September 24, 1717 to March 2, 1797)  a writer, and Whig politician, was
described by the Encyclopedia Britannica as an "English writer, connoisseur, and collector." He was well connected in the English upper class. His father was Prime Minister of Great Britain, for instance, and a cousin married a daughter of the Duke of Devonshire.

In a letter to a good friend, (May 26, 1748), Walpole wrote of dining at the Duke's home:

My Pigwiggin dinners are all over, [Walpole was leaving London] for which I truly say grace. I have had difficulties to keep my countenance at the wonderful clumsiness and uncouth nicknames that the duke has for all his offspring : Mrs. Hopefull, Mrs. Tiddle, Puss, Cat, and Toe, sound so strange in the middle of a most formal banquet!

"Cat" was Rachel, who would marry Walpole's cousin. The Duke mentioned was the third Duke of Devonshire. And Walpole himself was a famous cat lover, for it was his cat immortalized by Thomas Gray, in "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes." I do not know what the adjective "Pigwiggin" means.