Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/1003

Rh before, several of his friends were in the constant habit of meeting at his house on Sunday evenings. At that time he was a Professor in the University of Pennsylvania, and a gentleman much admired and respected for many estimable qualities. He would necessarily have numerous visitors, and, being supposed or known to be more at leisure on Sundays than on other nights of the week, it came to be more usually selected by his guests. As his widow described these visits, they were rather voluntary than invited."

As the years rolled on, they, however, became a regular institution, the same friends meeting, week after week, in Dr. Wistar's house, at the southwest corner of Fourth and Prune Streets. We are also informed, Mrs. Caspar Wistar being the authority, that in 1811 the night of meeting was changed from Sunday to Saturday. It is presumable that Mrs. Wistar herself had something to do with this change in the evening, as those were days when well-regulated housekeepers were not inclined to favor Sunday entertainments. Certain it is that she smiled upon the Saturday Wistarians by providing for them a more generous fare, adding ice-creams and raisins and almonds (shades of our ancestors! was dyspepsia a later discovery?) to the Sunday regale of cakes and wine. Even then the name of Sybarite could not be applied to those early convives: the terrapin and oyster decadence was of much later date. A table was seldom spread. The number of guests varied from ten to fifty, but usually included between fifteen and twenty-five persons. The invitations were commenced in October or November, and continued to March or April. During this period Dr. Wistar welcomed to his home, each week, his old friends and colleagues, and any strangers whom they chose to bring with them.

In 1804 Dr. Wistar issued an invitation to his friends to meet Baron von Humboldt, the great naturalist, and his young friend the botanist Bonpland, who stopped in Philadelphia on their return from a scientific expedition through Mexico and the West Indies. Here also was introduced the latest sensation, in the form of Captain Riley, long a prisoner among the Arabs; also the learned and eccentric Dr. Mitchill, first Surgeon-General of New York, later satirized by Halleck and Drake in "The Croakers:"

Dr. Hosack, of the same city, who was present at the fatal duel between Hamilton and Burr, was another early guest; while under the