were
unknown elsewhere. John Quincy Adams sought in vain to cultivate in
Boston the "Wistar parties" that Caspar Wistar had made so famous in
Philadelphia. One hundred years ago there was only one scientific
foundation within this Republic that was not in Philadelphia, and that
was the American Academy in Boston. The American Philosophical Society
in its venerable hall in State House Yard numbered Presidents
Washington, Jefferson and Adams among its members. The best scholars of
Europe and America read its "Transactions" or contributed to its
"Proceedings." From his private observatory David Rittenhouse made the
earliest astronomical observations in this country, and rested his
transit instrument upon the ancient stanchions that still maintain their
place in the Philosophical Society window looking out upon the fine old
trees planted by the father of John Vaughan, secretary and librarian of
the society. The only Natural History Museum in this country was opened
in 1802 at Third and Lombard by Charles Willson Peale; and far out on
the Schuylkill at Gray's Ferry, John Bartram, whom Linnaeus called "the
greatest natural botanist of the world," had planted the first botanic
garden.

The number of foreign exiles who at this time were moving in
Philadelphia society gave a cosmopolitan character to the city, and lent
to it the air of foreign capitals. Talleyrand, Beaumais, Vicomte de
Noailles and his brother-in-law Lafayette, Volney, the Duc de
Liancourt, and General Moreau, and at a later date Joseph Bonaparte and
Murat, were but a few of the distinguished members of the "French
colony."

JOSEPH DENNIE, the most interesting figure among American editors, came
to Philadelphia in 1799 as clerk to Timothy Pickering, who was then
Secretary of State, and his brilliant social qualities soon won him
recognition in the city. "The American Addison" he was called then, a
title he had won by the easy grace and pleasing melody of his style.[9]
He was born in Boston, August 30, 1768, and was sent to Harvard College,
where he proved a jibbing pupil, and was rusticated for a term of six
months. He industriously read all the books that were proscribed by the
Faculty, and ignored those studies that were recommended to him. His was
a brilliant but undisciplined mind, strongly independent, impetuous,
fond of contradiction, full of surprises, "studious of change and fond
of novelty," as he often defined himself. Soon after beginning the study