a bald head, and of a very plain and worthy appearance. He speaks
little, but what he does speak is to the purpose. I must confess that
I seldom in my life felt so true and sincere a reverence as at the
moment when this honorable gentleman, whom eleven millions of people
have thought worthy to elect as their chief magistrate, shook hands
with me.”
In the same year Chief Justice Tilghman records a Wistar Party held at
his house, at which were present such citizens as Roberts Vaux, Mathew
Carey, the Irish protectionist, his son Henry C. Carey, political
economist and writer, Joseph Hopkinson, the elder Peale, who had
studied at the Royal Academy in London and came home to paint portraits
of Washington and his generals, Dr. Frederick Beasley, and many more,
with a sprinkling of foreigners,--Mr. Pedersen, Minister from Denmark
to the United States, the Prince de Canino, who was an enthusiastic
ornithologist, Colonel Beckwith, who had left a leg upon the field of
Waterloo, and several French chevaliers. The whole company, numbering
about one hundred, was regaled with chicken salad, oysters, ices,
wine, punch, and the like, at an expense of twenty-four dollars and
eighty-nine cents. This moderate sum, the accurate transcriber tells
us, included the whiskey for the punch, the spermaceti candles, oil for
the lamps, and extra fire in one room.
Later in the history of the Wistar Club, after the good founders had
gone, and left it to its own devices, serious innovations were made in
the old sumptuary code, whereupon severe strictures were instituted
against the dainty fare set before the wise men, in the local journals
and elsewhere. One of these attacks upon the Wistarians appeared in
the then recently established _Daily Courier_, and is interesting
not only because the slashing editorial of the young writer ended
the brief career of his paper, but because its demise is intimately
connected with the rise of two prominent journals of to-day. It
happened that many of the subscribers to the _Daily Courier_ were
members or guests of the Wistar Parties. These persons instantly
withdrew their patronage. The _Courier_ was shaken to its foundations,
and the unfortunate young Scotchman, James Gordon Bennett, whose pen
had proved too sharp for Philadelphia, sold his journal to Mr. Jesper
Harding, upon which the _Daily Courier_ was merged in the _Pennsylvania
Inquirer_, and Mr. Bennett, having transplanted his talents to the more
congenial soil of New York, later employed them in founding the _New
York Herald_.[28]
Written invitations to the Wistar Parties seem to have been used up to
1835, when Mr. Vaughan first speaks of a printed invitation. This bore
the quaint queued head of Dr. Wistar, and is in all respects similar to
that issued by the Wistar Association _redivivus_ of 1886.
In 1838 and 1839 printed lists appeared, naming the hosts of the
season, and giving the dates of the several entertainments. To these
were appended sumptuary regulations, which were of course born to die.
Just when the terrapin, game, croquette, and like dainties replaced
the original decanters, flanked with ice, cakes, and one substantial
course, Mr. Tyson does not record. When the terrapin came, however, it
came to stay, until the hot discussions incident to the disturbances of
the late civil war routed it and the guests alike.
Thackeray carried away from Philadelphia such pleasant recollections of
the Wistar Parties, and the mirth and good cheer there enjoyed, that
he thus refers to them in a letter written to Mr. William B. Reed from
Washington in 1853. He has just heard of the death of his friend Mr.
William Peter, British Consul to Philadelphia.
“Saturday I was to have dined with him, and Mrs. Peter wrote saying he
was ill with influenza: he was in bed with his last illness, and there
were to be no more Whister parties for him. Will Whister himself,
hospitable pig-tailed shade, welcome him to Hades? And will they sit
down--no, stand up--to a ghostly supper, devouring the ιφθιμους ψυχας
of oysters and all sorts of birds?”
Something else than the mighty oysters impressed the genial novelist,
and that was the face and figure of John Irwin, a well-known
head-waiter, who so resembled the terrapin over which he presided that
Thackeray has, in a few rapid pencil-strokes, put him down on paper as
a fine specimen of a diamond-back. Those who still remember Irwin’s
great paunch and shining face will recognize his portrait in Mr.
Thackeray’s “Orphan of Pimlico.” Thus, this latter-day Bogle, although
there arose in his time no poet, like Nicholas Biddle, to embalm his
virtues in humorous verse, has, like the “colorless colored man,” been
immortalized by the hand of genius.
The pleasing side of Philadelphia social life must have left its
impress upon the receptive mind of Thackeray, as he writes from
Switzerland in July of the same year,--
“Since my return from the West, it was flying from London to Paris,
and _vice versa_, dinners right and left, parties every night. If I
had been in Philadelphia I could scarcely have been more feasted. Oh,
you unhappy Reed! I see you (after that little supper with McMichael)
on Sunday at your own table, when we had that good Sherry-Madeira,
turning aside from the wine-cup with your pale face! That cup has gone
down this well so often (meaning my own private cavity) that I wonder
the cup isn’t broken, and the well as well as it is.... I always
remember you and yours, and honest Mac, and Wharton, and Lewis, and
kind fellows who have been kind to me and I hope will be kind to me
again.”
The “Mac” is evidently Mr. Morton McMichael, to whose whiskey punch
Mr. Thackeray alludes with tenderness in another letter, and who
is described by all who knew him as the most genial of men, a very
“king of good fellows.” So great were his social talents that, like
Shenstone’s Frenchwoman who could “draw wit out of a stone,” he
possessed the power to redeem from stagnation the dullest of dinners by
his happy faculty of giving his best and leading others to do the same.
The “Lewis” alluded to by Mr. Thackeray is Mr. William D. Lewis, more
recently dead; another delightful dinner-talker. Possessed of rare
_bonhomie_, and furnished with a fund of anecdotes of travel,--for he
had lived some years in Russia,--he brought mirth and cheer into the
circles to which he was welcomed, and was even known, on occasions,
to sing some familiar household verses, as “Home, Sweet Home,” in the
Russian language, to the great amusement, if not to the edification, of
his hearers.
In 1842, Mr. Tyson records only two of the original members of 1818
still surviving, Dr. R. M. Patterson and Robert Walsh. The kindly
face of Mr. Vaughan (Johnny Vaughan, as his intimates called him),
first Dean of the Wistar Association, had only lately disappeared from
the circle. Although death had sadly thinned the ranks of original
membership, a number of honored names filled the blanks: among these,
Horace Binney, William M. Meredith, John Sergeant, Joshua Francis
Fisher, Judge Kane, Langdon Cheves, from South Carolina, Thomas Isaac
Wharton, and, there always being a large proportion of medical men,
such distinguished sons of the healing art as Dr. Robert Hare, Dr.
Thomas C. James, Dr. John K. Mitchell, Dr. Isaac Hays, physician and
writer, Dr. Franklin Bache and his friend Dr. George B. Wood closely
associated with him in medical literature, Dr. Charles D. Meigs, and
Moncure Robinson, Esq., who, among the many who have come and gone,
still [1887] recalls delightful evenings spent at the Wistar Parties.
Dr. Isaac Lea was in 1843 Dean of the association, which office he held
until the stirring events of ’60 and ’61 scattered its members, not
again to unite until 1886, within a few months of his death, when he
was succeeded in this office by his son, Mr. Henry C. Lea.[29]
Writing during this hiatus of many years, Dr. George B. Wood says,--
“I have always regarded the Wistar Club not merely as an ornamental
feature of Philadelphia society, but as a very useful institution;
bringing as it did persons together of various pursuits, who would not
otherwise perhaps have met, thus removing prejudices and conciliating
friendly feeling; and, by a regulation regarding strangers which
gave each member the right to introduce one or more to the meetings,
facilitating their intercourse with citizens, and contributing to the
reputation of our city for hospitality.”
It may be that these words hold something of a prophecy for the
future, as well as a _résumé_ of the past; and now that the old-time
invitation, bearing the “hospitable pig-tailed” head of the founder,
has once more begun to circulate, an important influence may be
exercised by it, in drawing together the best and ablest of the
various professions and callings of this city, and in affording,
as of old, a pleasant and informal means of entertaining stranger
guests. Such a club as this forecasts a meeting-ground where British
and Continental scientists and literati, professional men and men of
affairs, may clasp hands with American workers on the same lines;
where the large philanthropy of England may meet an even larger
New-World philanthropy; where, under some hospitable roof, questions in
social and political science, or the latest discovery in chemistry or
physics, may be discussed over croquettes and oysters, and with a dash
of hock or sherry (no sparkling wines are allowed) the seas that wash
widely-separated shores shall be bridged in an instant, and, meeting
on some congenial ground of knowledge, of thought, or of interest, Old
and New World denizens shall feel the delightful thrill of a common
brotherhood.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[25] Dr. Wistar married, in 1798, Elizabeth Mifflin, granddaughter of
John Mifflin, the Councillor.
[26] Dr. Rush himself humorously related how his patriotism had
interfered with his practice, a number of persons refusing to be
treated by him for yellow fever for the very good reason that he had
signed the Declaration of Independence.
[27] Since writing the above, it appears upon the indisputable
authority of the first charter for the city of Philadelphia, discovered
in 1887 by Messrs. Edward P. Allinson and Boies Penrose, that the
honored name of Edward Shippen, which so long headed the list of
Philadelphia mayors, must be relegated to a second place, Humphrey
Morray having been the first mayor of Philadelphia.
[28] Casper Souder’s History of Chestnut Street.
[29] The Saturday Night Parties, held during the war and for some
years after, have been spoken of as direct successors of the Wistar
Association. These, however, were not composed of members of the
Philosophical Society, and the discussions at the meetings naturally
partook of the heat and excitement of the hour, rather than of the
calmer literary and scientific debate for which the Wistar Parties were
designed. The only lineal descendants of the Wistar Association of 1818
are the parties recently organized, which bear the name of the great
physician and scientist in whose honor they were founded.
[Illustration: A BUNDLE OF OLD LOVE LETTERS]
Strange it is that the maiden meditations of more than two centuries
ago should have recently been brought to light in the love-letters of
Dorothy Osborne, so full of womanly tenderness, so humorous, so grave
and gay by turns, and so valuable for the spirited pictures they give
of the life and personages of the day.
Among stacks of dry-as-dust manuscripts, awaiting the discriminating
inspection of the antiquarian, are doubtless other letters of sentiment
worthy of the world’s reading, even if there are few equal in grace
and style to those of the lovely mistress of Chicksands. A few such
unknown or forgotten love-letters have come under the observation of
the writer,--among these some yellowed pages traced by the hand of
William Penn and addressed to Hannah Callowhill, whose name is now
handed down to Philadelphians by the street which bears her family
name, but who was known to her contemporaries as a woman of strong
character and noble qualities, well fitted to be a helpmeet to the good
Proprietary. These letters form pleasant reading for a leisure hour,
not only on account of their quaint simplicity, but also because of the
insight they give into the delicate and refined nature of the man who
wrote them.[30]
We are wont to think of the founder of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
as a man deeply immersed in religious questions, in legal business,
land surveys and titles,--indeed, in all that affected the welfare of
the little colony that he established on the banks of the Delaware. To
picture him as an ardent lover requires some imagination, especially
at a period when the early romance of his life was buried in the grave
of his beloved Gulielma, and he figures on the pages of history as a
widower, past middle age, with three children. Yet among his letters
to his betrothed are some that glow with all the warmth and ardor of
youthful affection, while, as befits a man of his years and position,
they contain wise reflections on life, and passages marked by the
prudence, the forethought, and the practical grasp that come with riper
age; and always they are deeply and sincerely religious.
This Quaker lover does not write a sonnet to the eyebrows of his
mistress, nor does he say, like a modern widower whose _billet doux_
has come under our notice, that he has “lost his married partner and
would be glad to renew his loss.” He tells her, in grave and simple
language, that it is for the qualities of her heart and mind that he
loves her and desires to win her, as in the following written from
Worminghurst, Penn’s English home, in 1695:
“And now let me tell thee, my Dearest, that tho’ there are many
qualitys, for which I admire thee, as well as love thee, yet yt of
Compassionating the unhappy is none of the least. And whatsoever
pittys has love, for it springs out of the same soft ground; and can
never fail, as often as there is occasion to try it. That my Dearest
H. has been a Mourner, a Sympathizer, an inhabitant of Dust, and so
wean’d from the common tastes of pleasure, yt gratefy other Pallats,
does so much exalt her character with me, yt if this were all she
brought, she must be a treasure to yt happy man yt has a Title to her.
And since, by an unusual goodness, she has made it my Lot, it shall be
as much my pleasure as she has made it my duty to make her constantly
sensible how much I am so of my obligation to her.”
One of the most tender of these missives includes some family details
about Billy’s[31] health, who “is lively yet tender” and has just had
his hair cut, and winds up with the following description of a most
unromantic hamper which was intended as an offering to the beloved one:
“I presume by the next wagon, there comes an Hamper directed to thy
father, the Contents for thee. Viz 3 Gallons of light french Brandy,
one of wh’ pray present thy Mother. I ordered 2 lbs of Chocolate to
keep them company. My Daughter prays thee to accept of 3 small pots of
venson, yt she says will keep well & are of her own manufacture, as
were all the last. She is concerned her pig brawn was not ready wc’h
she fancys would not have been a disagreeable way of eating a pig, but
another season will do. These are little things and yet would express
tho’ meanly Love that is Great.”
Was Letitia Penn’s brawn the same sort as that over which dear old Lamb
waxed so eloquent in a letter to his friend Manning? It had been sent
to him by the cook of Trinity Hall and Caius College, and he says of
it,--
“’Tis of all my hobbies the supreme in the eating way. He might have
sent sops from the pan, skimmings, crumpets, chips, hog’s lard, the
tender brown judiciously scalped from a fillet of veal (dexterously
replaced by a salamander), the tops of asparagus, fugitive livers,
run-away gizzards of fowls, the eyes of martyred pigs, the red spawn
of lobsters, leverets’ ears, and such pretty filchings common to
cooks; but these had been ordinary presents, the every-day courtesies
of dish-washers to their sweethearts. Brawn was a noble thought.”
At another time William Penn is concerned about the health of his
betrothed, and concludes his missive with an earnest recommendation to
her to take some pills, that he sends her, at certain hours of the
day, and a specified medicinal water, to be imbibed “three days before
the full and changes of the moon.”
It appears to have been a not unusual practice among lovers of this
period to prescribe for their sweethearts, as we find Dorothy Osborne
writing about some infusion of steel in which she drinks Sir William
Temple’s health every morning. She vows that it makes her horribly ill,
says that it is a “drench that would poison a horse,” and declines to
continue its use unless her lover insists upon her doing so. In another
of her charming letters she gives Sir William many directions about the
care of his precious health, and even does a little quacking on his
behalf, sending him a new medicine for his cold, of which she says,--
“’Tis like the rest of my medicines: if it do no good ’twill do no
harm and ’twill be no great trouble to take a little on’t now and
then; for the taste on’t as it is not excellent, so ’tis not very ill.”
It is well that some of these old letters of sentiment and domestic
life are left us, for did we not occasionally catch glimpses of the
great men of the past penning tender messages to beloved objects
(sometimes, indeed, spelling them very ill), writing about their
children and sending them trinkets and gewgaws, they would become to us
shadowy personages, very spectres, and hauntings of a dream.
To those who are only acquainted with James Logan, William Penn’s young
secretary, through his official correspondence and endless business
letters, he must appear a very didactic and uninteresting personage;
yet reading between the lines, or scanning a stray letter addressed
to some friend or relative, we catch a sight of the real man, of like
passions with ourselves. Mrs. Hannah Penn, who survived her lover’s
generous hampers and curious medical prescriptions and became a
happy wife and the mother of a brood of sturdy young Penns, was well
qualified to be a lover’s _confidante_, and to her James Logan was
pleased to unburden his numerous and, it must be admitted, unsuccessful
love-affairs. A disappointed lover may not be the most attractive
object in every-day life, but for some indefinable reason it adds to
the historic interest of a man, especially to the feminine reader, to
know that he loved and wooed in vain and bewailed his fate in prose or
verse. Otherwise, why should generations of school-girls weep over the
sorrows of Werther? The young secretary was enamoured of Letitia Penn,
her of the pig’s brawn, and Rebecca Moore, and several others, if we
are to judge from his letters. Letitia married William Aubrey, for whom
James Logan’s admiration was ever after of the scantest. His allusion
to his rival’s rapacity in money-matters, saying that he was “a tiger
for returns,” by which he referred to quit-rents and the like, may not
have been high-minded, but was it not natural? and also that he should
have found few words in which to praise Governor Evans, whom the fair
Rebecca Moore made supremely happy? It was not, however, written in
the book of fate that this excellent Quaker youth should forever woo
in vain, and from some family treasure-trove there comes a charming
letter that succeeded in bringing to his side the lady of his love,
with whom he lived as long and as happily as the princes and princesses
of fairy lore. After dwelling at length upon the “excellent virtues”
and qualifications of this adorable Quaker maiden, and upon his ardent
desire to claim them and her for his own, the writer says, with noble
self-abnegation,--
“Yet, my Dearest, I cannot press it further, than thou with freedom
canst condescend to it, and enjoy Peace and Satisfaction in thy own
mind, for without this, I cannot so much as desire to obtain thee.
I therefore here resign thee to that Gracious God, thy tender and
merciful father, to whom thy innocent life and virtuous inclinations
have certainly rendered thee very dear that He may dispose of thee
according to His divine Pleasure, and as it may best suit thy
happiness--humbly imploring at the same time, and beseeching His
divine Goodness, that I may be made worthy to receive thee as a holy
gift from his hands: and then thou wilt truly prove a Blessing, and we
shall forever be happy in each other.”[32]
This letter of the young secretary is in striking contrast to the
overloaded verbiage so prevalent in that day, which is exhibited in
another Colonial letter of a few years’ earlier date, and which reads
as if modelled on the style of Sir Charles Grandison. The writer of
this last effusion, who calls himself the Rev. Elias Keach, apologizes
elaborately for “rushing his rude and unpolished lines into the Heroik
and most Excelent Presence” of his sweetheart, Mistress Mary Helm.
After defining his financial status, which is at a rather low ebb, and
giving forth as his opinion that “Pure Righteousness and Zeal exceeds a
portion with a wife, so also in a Husband,” Mr. Keach launches his bark
upon a troubled sea of rhetorical affection, in which he pleads the
advantages of his person, mind, and estate, of whose claims he never
loses sight, even when involved in the most high-flown metaphorical
descriptions of the charms of his mistress. The style of Mr. Keach,
however, is not to be described. Like Charles Lamb’s favorite dish,
it must be tasted to be enjoyed. From the carefully pen-printed pages
before us, we transcribe the following passages: