Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

It is to be regretted that Mr. Vaughan, Mr. Du Ponceau, or the learned Dr. Benjamin Rush, who at times used a pen with a humorous nib, or some of the other _habitués_ of these unique gatherings, have not left us pleasant and gossiping reminiscences of the Wistar Club, which would serve to render us as familiar with these old figures as contemporaneous writers have made us with the frequenters of the Kit-Cat Club, where the wits of Queen Anne’s time gathered, or that later circle at the Turk’s Head, dominated by the great burly figure of the dictionary-maker. Garrick, Reynolds, and all the rest are grouped about him; and Boswell is ever at hand, taking notes. Did humble Boswell realize that he was painting pictures for the future, as well as, even better than, the elegant Sir Joshua, who sat near him? Goldsmith was at it too, giving us life as it was, not some fanciful picture of it; and to them we owe it that these men live before us now. The following is the nearest approach that we can find to such a picture, and this, from the pen of the late Chief Justice Tilghman, gives us only one figure, when we would like to be presented to the whole company.

After dwelling upon the modest dignity and bland courtesy of Dr. Wistar’s bearing as President of the Philosophical Society, and the ardor with which he incited its members to diligence in collecting, before it should be too late, the perishing materials of American history, Mr. Tilghman says,--

“The meetings of this committee he [Dr. Wistar] regularly attended. It was their custom, after the business of the evening was concluded, to enter upon an unconstrained conversation on literary subjects. Then, without intending it, our lamented friend would insensibly take the lead; and so interesting were his anecdotes, and so just his remarks, that, drawing close to the dying embers, we often forgot the lapse of time, until warned by the unwelcome clock that we had entered on another day.”

Here is another pen-sketch from a writer signing himself “Antiquary,” which has a touch of life in it, and shows the good doctor’s ready tact in setting a _gauche_ stranger at his ease. Mr. John Vaughan introduced into the learned circle what the narrator is pleased to call “a living, live Yankee, a specimen of humanity more rare,” he says, “forty or fifty years ago than now.” It would appear that this compatriot was received into the company with emotions similar to those awakened, later, by the advent of the “American Cousin” in England.

“He was,” says the writer, “a man remarkable for his mechanical turn of mind, but entirely unused to society. No workshop could turn out a more uncouth individual. I was standing near the door when John Vaughan brought him in. Between the blaze of light, the hum of conversation, and the number of well-dressed men, he was completely overcome, and sank into the first chair he could reach. Mr. Vaughan could not coax him out of it, and I expected every minute the door opened that he would make a bolt for the street. Presently Dr. Wistar, who had the happy knack of suiting his conversation to all ages and classes, was introduced to the shy Yankee. Soon the ice was broken, and I saw the shy mechanic conversing freely with scientific men, explaining to them his views upon mechanism, etc.”

When, in 1818, the good old doctor went out to join “the innumerable company,” the little circle here, which he had drawn together, resolved to commemorate the pleasant meetings at his house, and to keep fresh his memory, by forming an organization called the Wistar Parties. This is, in brief, the _raison d’être_ of the association, as given by a subsequent member, Mr. Job R. Tyson, in his interesting paper entitled “Sketch of the Wistar Party,” read before that honorable society September 26, 1845. He says,--

“I have ascertained that the following gentlemen, in the autumn of the year 1818, formed themselves into an association and agreed to give three parties every year, during the season: William Tilghman, Robert M. Patterson, Peter S. Du Ponceau, John Vaughan, Reuben Haines, Robert Walsh, Jr., Zacheus Collins, and Thomas C. James.”

There were only eight to begin with; in 1821 the number had increased to sixteen, and in 1828 to twenty-four.

Mr. Tyson tells us that two essential laws of the existence of the organization were, “_first_, that no one is eligible to membership who is not a member of the American Philosophical Society; and, _second_, that unanimity is necessary to a choice.” Numerous regulations were added, “which,” he says, “with some modifications, have since been observed.”

The number of Philadelphians who could be invited to one party was twenty, and these it appears were picked citizens, selected rather for their attainments and attributes than for their “long descent.” With regard to the number of strangers invited, no limit was set.

The members were pledged to attend themselves, and procure the attendance of strangers, punctually at the hour of eight o’clock; and “the sumptuary code enjoined, as consentaneous with the scheme and objects in view, that the entertainments should be marked by unexpensive, if not frugal, simplicity.” No tea, coffee, cakes, or wine were to be served before supper. It was recommended that the collation consist of one course, and be so prepared as to dispense with the use of knives at table. No ice-creams were allowed. This in 1828.

In 1835 Mr. Job R. Tyson bought Dr. Caspar Wistar’s old house, at Fourth and Prune Streets, when once more it opened its doors to the learned and jovial brotherhood.

In 1840 the number of citizens who could be invited was raised to forty, while in the years succeeding the organization of the club many guests from over the sea, and from the different States of the Union, had been welcomed to the Wistar Parties. One of the latter writes,--

“During my stay in Philadelphia I was present at several of these Wistar meetings, and always returned from them with increased conviction of their beneficial tendency.

“These meetings are held by rotation at the houses of the different members. The conversation is generally literary or scientific, and, as the party is usually very large, it can be varied at pleasure. Philosophers eat like other men, and the precaution of an excellent supper is by no means found to be superfluous. It acts, too, as a gentle emollient on the acrimony of debate. No man can say a harsh thing with his mouth full of turkey, and disputants forget their differences in unity of enjoyment.”

Better known abroad in the early part of the century than any other American city, all travellers of consequence came to Philadelphia. Among these we find such men as General Moreau, counted after Bonaparte the greatest general in the French Republic; the younger Murat, who married Miss Fraser, of South Carolina; the Marquis de Grouchy, whose name will be forever associated with the defeat of Waterloo; the poet Moore, whose singing drew tears from the beautiful eyes of Mrs. Joseph Hopkinson; the Prince de Canino, son-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte, ex-king of Spain, who, himself residing at Bordentown until 1830, was doubtless a guest of the Wistar Association, although, after the fashion of princes, it was his pleasure to entertain rather than to be entertained. These and many more, including President Madison, and the witty and able Virginia gentleman William Short, who, as secretary of legation under Thomas Jefferson, chargé-d’affaires to the French Republic, and minister to Spain and the Netherlands, had seen much of foreign official and social life. An acquaintance of Talleyrand, himself a diplomatist, life abroad offered Mr. Short many attractions, which a friend and contemporary assures us were more than balanced by the terrors of the sea, which menaced him in the form of sea-sickness. This gentleman, a surviving member of the Wistar Association of 1837, recalls no social intercourse in Old-World cities more delightful than that of this informal club.

While on a visit to Philadelphia in 1825, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar makes the following entry in his journal:

“At Mr. Walsh’s I found a numerous assembly, mostly of scientific and literary gentlemen. This assembly is called ‘Wistar Party.’... The conversation generally relates to literary and scientific topics. I unexpectedly met Mr. E. Livingston in this assembly. I was also introduced to the mayor of the city, Mr. [Joseph] Watson, as well as to most of the gentlemen present, whose interesting conversation afforded me much entertainment.”

This German nobleman, who was well “wined and dined” in old Philadelphia, seems to have possessed a happy faculty of replying aptly to the pretty compliments paid him and his country by Judge Peters, Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, and other social magnates of the period. To the toast “Weimar, the native country of letters,” he replied, with ready wit, “Pennsylvania, the asylum of unfortunate Germans.” Can we not hear the laughter and applause that greeted that toast? They were not allowed to subside, either, as the venerable Judge Peters followed the toast with a song which he had composed the previous evening, and which he sang with great vivacity and spirit. Are there any such gatherings now, and do our octogenarians sing songs of their own composing with vivacity?

The Duke of Saxe-Weimar describes another Wistar Party, this at the house of Colonel Clement C. Biddle, at which John Quincy Adams, then President of the United States, was a guest. Of him he says,--

“The President is about sixty years old, of rather short stature, with 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.

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.

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:

“Lady let me crave the mantle of your Virtue the which Noble and generous favor will hide my naked and deformed fault altho: it seems to be a renewed coldness to require such an incomparable favour from your tender heart, from whom I have deserved so little Kindness. Mrs. Mary: Solomon says Childhood and Youth are vanity; and if so you cannot expect that in my youth which the gray hairs of our Age (or at least of our wooden world) cannot afford; it is a common saying and a true, love is stronger than death, & it is as true a proverb where Love cannot go it will creep--you know Dear Lady, that the higher the sun riseth by degrees from the East the more influence hath the power and heat of its beams upon the Earth, so ever since I saw the sun-rise of your comely and gracious presence the sunbeams of your countenance and your discreet and virtuous behaviour, hath by degrees wroat such a virtuous heat and such Ammorouse Effects in my disconsolate heart that that which I cannot at present disclose in words in your gracious presence I am forct (altho far distant from you) to discover in ink and paper; trusting in god that this may be a Key to open the door of your virtuous and tender heart against the time I do appear in person; Dear Mistress: let me most submissively crave this favour of you among your generrosities that you would not in the least Imagine that I have any Bye Ends or reserves in writing these few lines to you: But that I am Virtuously truly and sincerely, upon the word of a Christian; and the main scope and intent of this letter is only and alone to discover unto you, these Amorous impressions of a virtuous Love which hath taken root or is Allready ingrafted in my heart; who have lifted myself under the Banner of your Love; provided I can by any means gain the honor to induce you to Acknowledge and account me your most obligeing Servant: I must needs say this is not a common practice of mine to write Letters of this nature but Love hath made that proper which is not common; Mrs. Mary if I had foreseen when I saw you what I have since experienced I would have foreshown a more Ample and courteous behavior than I then did; Through my Stupidity and dullness the reason then I could not tell: But the effects I now know and shall be careful and industrious to improve, not to your disadvantage, and I am persuaded to my exceeding comfort and contentment; as for my person you have in a measure seen it, and as for my practice you do in a measure Know it as for my parts the Effects of my Conversations will show it. I know it is folly to speak in my own Praise, seeing I have learnt this Leason Long ago wise is that man that speaks few words in his own praise....

“As for my parents I am obliged By the Law of god; to Honour them, & thus I say in short (first) they are of no mean Family; (secondly) they are of no mean Learning, & (thirdly) they are of no mean account and note in the World: tho they are not of ye world But the truth & certainty of this I Leave to be proved; By Severall of no mean note in this Province and the next.”

Mr. Keach evidently refers to the Provinces of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. After several lines that it is impossible to decipher, we extract the following hope:

“That the Silver Streams of my Dearest Affections and faithfull Love will be willingly received into the Mill Pond of your tender Virgin Heart; by your halling up the flood gate of your virtuous Love and Affections; which will completely turn the Wheeles of your Gracious will and Understanding to receive the golden graines or Effects of my Steadfast Love and unerring Affection which will be in Loyall respective and Obliging Service so Long as Life Shall Last and such a thrice Happy Conjunction; may induce Many to bring bags of Golden graines of Rejoycing to our Mill and River of joy and contentment and we ourselves will sing ye Epithalmy; this is the Earnest (yet Languishing) Desire of his Soul who hath sent his heart with his Letter:”[33]

The foregoing epistle is connected with a curious chapter in the religious life of the Lower Counties of Pennsylvania.[34] The writer, a son of the celebrated controversialist and Baptist divine of London, Benjamin Keach, made himself notorious in the early days of the Colony by passing himself off as a minister of the Baptist Church. “A very wild spark,” one historian calls him, while even in Baptist annals Elias Keach is spoken of as “an ungodly young man, who, to make himself appear to be a clergyman, wore black clothing and bands.” He carried his imposture so far as to undertake to conduct a service, in the midst of which he broke down, and when the congregation gathered about him, thinking that he was attacked by some sudden indisposition, Mr. Keach confessed, “with tears and much trembling,” that he was no minister, nor a Christian. Whether this shady episode, which occurred in 1686, the same year that the love-letter was written to Miss Helm, prevented the mistress of his “Amorous and Virtuous Affections” from favoring his suit, contemporaneous history does not reveal. It does, however, establish the fact that Miss More, daughter of Chief Justice Nicholas More, of Pennsylvania, and not Miss Helm, became the wife of the polite letter-writer. It would be interesting to know with what sort of a declaratory effusion this second love was favored. On this point history is again silent. It states, however, what it is only just to repeat with regard to the subsequent career of Elias Keach,--namely, that he repented of his sins before he created further scandal in clerical circles. Having confessed, and having received absolution and ordination from one Elder Dungan, of Rhode Island, Mr. Keach began his life-work in earnest, which evidently bore good fruit, as he now enjoys the reputation of having established the first Baptist church in Philadelphia County, that of Pennepack, from which sprang a large sisterhood of Baptist churches in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

Among later Colonial love-letters are those of Abigail Smith, afterwards Mrs. John Adams, which are marked by the ready wit and playful fancy that characterized all her writings. These qualities she seems to have inherited from no stranger, as her father, the Rev. William Smith of Weymouth, was one of the most facetious of divines. It is said that when his eldest daughter, Mary, married Richard Cranch, he preached from Luke x. 42: “And Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Abigail also had her turn. Some of the aristocratic parishioners of Weymouth objected to John Adams because he was the son of a small farmer and himself a lawyer, these two facts rendering him, they thought, ineligible to marry the minister’s daughter, in whose veins flowed the bluest of New England blue blood. Mr. Smith accordingly favored his congregation with a discourse on the text, “For John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil,” the latter clause having reference to the groom’s profession, the law, which was not then held in much repute in New England.

In a letter written by Miss Smith, from her village home, to John Adams, who was undergoing the process of inoculation for small-pox in Boston, she says,--

“By the time you receive this I hope from experience that you will be able to say that the distemper is but a trifle. Think you I would not endure a trifle for the pleasure of seeing you? Yes, were it ten times that trifle, I would. But my own inclinations must not be followed. I hope you smoke your letters well before you deliver them. Mamma is so fearful lest I catch the distemper, that she hardly ever thinks the letters are sufficiently purified. Did you never rob a bird’s nest? Do you remember how the poor birds would fly round and round, fearful to come nigh, yet not know how to leave the place? Just so they say I hover round Tom whilst he is smoking my letters.”

It is to be regretted that John Adams’s answers to these letters are not preserved: they were probably burned up by the anxious mamma.

All Abigail’s letters are love-letters in their tone of earnest devotion, whether written before or after marriage. With the details of the stir and excitement of military doings in and around Boston, the arrival of General Washington, the scantiness of provisions, and the cry for pins, which seem to have been as scarce as diamonds, there abound such passages as this:

“I wish I could come and see you. I never suffer myself to think you are about returning soon. Can it, will it be? May I ask--may I wish for it? When once I expect you----But hush! Do you know it is eleven o’clock at night?... Pray don’t let Bass forget my pins. We shall soon have no coffee, nor sugar, nor pepper here; but whortleberries and milk we are not obliged to commerce for. I saw a letter of yours to Colonel Palmer by General Washington. I hope I have one too. Good-night. With thoughts of thee I close my eyes. Angels guard and protect thee; and may a safe return ere long bless thy Portia.”

It was always Diana or Portia, after the romantic fashion of those days; and who would not rather have been Portia than plain Abigail to her lover?

A curious literary and historical fact, not generally known, is that General Benedict Arnold, who was notorious for his extravagance in public and private life, was extremely parsimonious in the matter of love-letters. By the infallible proof of an old letter, recently discovered, it appears that he made the same amatory composition do double duty, having used it in addressing at least two ladies of his choice. The letter was first employed in a proposal to Miss A., whom he did not marry, and with a few changes was used in offering himself to the beautiful Miss Peggy Shippen, of Philadelphia, whom he married in 1779. The letter, as addressed to Miss Shippen, is to be found in Arnold’s “Life of Benedict Arnold,” and is undoubtedly a fine sample of a love-letter of a rather florid and bombastic style. If Miss Shippen had realized that her suitor had written to an earlier love that her “charms had lighted up a flame in his bosom which could never be extinguished, that her heavenly image was too dear to be ever effaced, and that Heaven’s blessing should be implored for the idol and _only_ wish of his soul,” she might with some reason have hesitated to bestow her hand upon so trite a lover, who could find no fresh adjectives to match her charms.

Of interesting foreign love-letters we might speak at length: of a manly and tender missive from the great Gustavus Adolphus to an early love; of the Klopstock letters, than which in the whole literature of love nothing more beautiful can be found; of those of Prosper Mérimée to his _coquette Inconnue_, with their irresistible grace and brilliancy enhanced by the air of mystery that surrounds them; or of the exquisite metrical love-letters that Elizabeth Barrett addressed to her “Most gracious singer of high poems.” We have chosen rather to group together a few Colonial love-letters, not only because most of them are unknown to the reading world, but also with a thought of drawing together in sympathy lovers of to-day with those of a past generation, not wigged, capped, and spectacled, as we are wont to picture our grandfathers and grandmothers, but with flowing locks and flashing eyes, armed _cap-à-pie_ to enter in and conquer, or be conquered, in that fair realm where victor and vanquished rejoice to quit the lists hand clasped in hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] From MS. letters in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[31] William Penn, Jr., who grew up a gay young blade and distinguished himself by beating the watch and otherwise scandalizing the law-abiding citizens of old Philadelphia.

[32] From MS. letter, written to Miss Sarah Read, of Philadelphia, in possession of Miss F. A. Logan.

[33] Original owned by Miss Anna Peale, a grand-daughter of Charles Willson Peale.

[34] New Castle, Kent, and Sussex, which now form the State of Delaware.

_THE PHILADELPHIA DANCING ASSEMBLIES_

As has been said, we are wont to think of our esteemed progenitors of the Colonial and Revolutionary periods as performing valuable service in their day and generation, “being good,” as some wit expresses it, “but not having a very good time.” If our thoughts revert to the ladies of the last century, we picture them spending their days in spinning, knitting, or sewing, surrounded by their maid-servants, whom they are instructing in these most useful arts, as the Mother of the Republic is described by so many who visited her at Mount Vernon, rather than in bedecking themselves for conquest in the gay world. The men of the period seem to have spent so much of their time at assemblies, not dancing assemblies, but those in which the laws of the Colonies were discussed, and land-claims, quit-rents, and other dry affairs settled, that we are surprised when a stray leaf from the note-book of some public man floats down to us containing such entries as the following:

Diana for attendance 15_s._
For candles £1.12_s._
“ snuffers 4_s._
“ three dozen chairs £7.
“ 200 limes 14_s._
“ 18 pounds milk bisket 9_s._
“ 5 gallons rum and cask £2.3_s._
“ Musick £1.10_s._

Learning that these items were among the expenses of an early Philadelphia Dancing Assembly, and that the wives and daughters of such ancient worthies as His Honor the Governor of Pennsylvania, Chief Justice Shippen, Thomas Hopkinson, and the Bond brothers wore rich imported silks, feathers, and flowers, and attended routs and balls, life in the old Provincial city is suddenly lit up with brighter hues, and gay scenes take their place upon the canvas of the past.

History has treated with such dignified silence this more frivolous side of Philadelphia life that it is only from old manuscript letters and note-books, from such sprightly diaries as those of William Black, of Virginia, Sarah Eve, and Sally Wister, and from Watson and other annalists, that we learn that there was much gayety, as well as rare good living, in this city in the last century. As early as 1738 we read of a dancing class, instructed by Theobald Hackett, who engaged to teach

“all sorts of fashionable English and French dances, after the newest and politest manner practised in London, Dublin, and Paris, and to give to young ladies, gentlemen, and children the most graceful carriage in dancing and genteel behavior in company that can possibly be given by any dancing-master whatever.”

Certainly the dancing-master’s card is worded in the “politest manner,” and his pupils in this city must have proved singularly apt in the Terpsichorean art, as the Philadelphia women were noted, at an early date, for their grace and social charm.

Later, one Kennet taught dancing and fencing, as did also John Ormsby, from London, “in the newest taste now practised in Europe, at Mr. Foster’s house, in Market Street, opposite the Horse and Dray.”

These announcements sound strangely un-Quakerlike, and in 1749 such alarming premonitory symptoms of gayety culminated in a regular series of subscription balls, after the London fashion. The good Quakers naturally looked askance at such festivities; consequently we find the names of no Pembertons, Logans, Fishers, Lloyds, Whartons, Coxes, Rawles, Norrises, Peningtons, Emlens, Morrises, or Biddles on the original list of membership; but here are M’Calls, Francises, Burds, Shippens, Barclays, Wilcockses, Willings, McIlvaines, Hamiltons, Allens, Whites, and Conynghams.

The clergy was represented in these early Assemblies by the Rev. Richard Peters, of London, who held high positions in the State as well as in the Church, and the Provincial Government by James Hamilton, the first American-born governor of Pennsylvania. A letter from Richard Peters to Thomas Penn shows what a warm interest the reverend gentleman took in the recently-formed Assembly. The letter is dated New Castle, May 3, 1749, and reads as follows:

“By the Governor’s encouragement there has been a very handsome Assembly once a fortnight at Andrew Hamilton’s house and stores, which are tenanted by Mr. Inglis [and] make a set of rooms for such a purpose, & Consists of eighty ladies and as many gentlemen, one-half appearing every Assembly Night. Mr. Inglis had the conduct of the whole, and managed exceeding well. There happened a little mistake at the beginning, which at some other times might [have] produced disturbances. The Governor would have opened the Assembly with Mrs. Taylor, but she refused him, I suppose because he had not been to visit her. After Mrs. Taylor’s refusal, two or three other ladies, out of Modesty and from no manner of ill design, excused themselves, so that the Governor was put a little to his shifts when Mrs. Willing, now Mrs. Mayoreas,[35] in a most Genteel Manner put herself into his way, and on the Governor seeing this instance, he”

here there occurs something illegible, but it appears from what follows that the Governor danced the first minuet with this amiable lady, who showed her fine breeding by stepping in to prevent his being placed in an awkward position.

Mr. Peters adds, in judicial form, that “Mrs. Taylor was neither blamed nor excused nor commended, and so it went off, and every person during the continuance of the Assembly, which ended last week, was extremely cheerful and good natured.”

This Mrs. Abraham Taylor was the same Philadelphia Taylor who wrote a little earlier of the exceeding dulness of Provincial life, and the lack of all congenial amusement, sighing the while for an “English Arcadia,” which she thus quaintly described: “The hight of my ambition is to have us all live together in some pretty country place in a clean and genteel manner.”

It is pleasing to know that social life was beginning to come up to this lady’s standard, even if her own manners did not rise with it. Her rude treatment of Governor Hamilton was due to the fact of her husband having some difficulty with the Provincial authorities, which she undertook to revenge upon the person who seems to have been the least to blame in the matter.

The managers of the first Assembly were John Swift, a successful merchant, and Collector of the Port of Philadelphia; John Wallace, son of a Scotch clergyman; John Inglis, whose name is not now represented in Philadelphia, but from whom are descended Fishers, Cadwaladers, Coxes, and Kanes; and Lynford Lardner, an Englishman, who came here in 1740 to hold a number of honorable positions in the Province, and, being addicted to learning as well as to gayety, was a director of the Library Company and an early member of the American Philosophical Society.[36]

Among the subscribers to the first Dancing Assembly was Andrew Elliot, son of Sir Gilbert Elliot, then a young man recently arrived in the Province. Although he married into two Philadelphia families, Mr. Elliot’s associations were much with New York, where he was sometime Collector of Customs and Lieutenant-Governor. Mrs. Jauncey, Governor Elliot’s daughter, writes from that city, in 1783, of a ball at Head-quarters in honor of the Queen’s birthday, which her father urged his wife to attend, yet we find him writing a few months later of Mrs. Elliot being in Philadelphia, and warmly received by the authorities there, “in high spirits and high frolic, with all her best clothes; dancing with the French Minister, Financier-General, Governor of the State, &c., &c., all striving who shall show her most attention.” This latter was after the preliminaries of peace had been signed between Great Britain and the United States, when Governor Elliot’s old friends, “Governor Dickinson, Bob. Morris,” and other officials in the government, had begun to assume the more imposing proportions of winning figures. Both Mrs. Jauncey and Elizabeth Elliot married Englishmen. The latter, as Lady Cathcart, seems to have taken particular delight in dazzling the eyes of her American relatives with pictures of her own magnificent appearance in sable and diamonds assisting at court functions, where she is pleased to find herself on occasions the best dressed person in the company.[37]

Mrs. Jekyll, whose name is to be found on the early Assembly lists, and who is spoken of as “a lady of pre-eminent fashion and beauty,” was a grand-daughter of the first Edward Shippen. Her husband, John Jekyll, was Collector of the Port of Boston. In connection with this lady’s gayety and social distinction, Watson gives some curious information with regard to the invitations in early times, which, he says, were printed upon common playing-cards, there being no blank cards in the country, none but playing-cards being imported for sale. “I have seen at least a variety of a dozen in number addressed to this same lady [Mrs. Jekyll]. One of them, from a leading gentleman of that day, contained on the back the glaring effigy of _a queen_ of clubs!”[38]