by King George the Second to a professorship in the university of Gottingen, resounded at this time throughout Europe: and Zimmerman determined to prosecute his studies in physic under the auspices of this great and celebrated master. He was admitted into the university on the 12th of September, 1747, and obtained his degree on the 14th of August, 1751. To relax his mind from severer studies, he cultivated a complete knowledge of the English language, and became so great a proficient in the polite and elegant lite. rature of this country, that the British Poets, particularly Shakspeare, Pope, and Thomson, were as familiar to him as his favourite authors, Homer and Virgil. Every moment, in short, of the four years he passed at Gottingen, was em. ployed in the improvement of his mind; and so early as the year 1751, he produced a work in which he discovered the dawnings of that extraordinary genius which afterwards spread abroad with so much effulgence * During the early part of his residence at Berne, he published many excellent essays on various subjects in the Helvetic Journal; particularly a work on the talents and erudition of Haller. This grateful tribute to the just merits of his friend and benefactor, he afterwards enlarged into a complete history of his life and writings, as a scholar, a philosopher. a physician, and a man. The health of Haller, which had suffered greatly by the severity of study, seemed to decline in proportion as his fame increased; and, obtaining permission to leave Gottingen, he repaired to Berne, to try, by the advice and assistance of Zimmerman, to restore, if possible, his decayed constitution. The benefits he experienced in a short time were so great, that he determined to relinquish his professorship, and to pass the remainder of his days in that city. In the family of * Dissertatio Physiologica de irritabilitate quam publice defendet. Joh. Georgius Zimmerman. Goett. 4to. 1751. Haller, lived a young lady, nearly related to him, whose maiden name was Mely, and whose husband, M. Stek, had been some time dead. Zimmerman became deeply enamoured of her charms: he offered her his hand in marriage; and they were united at the altar in the bands of mutual affection. Soon after his union with this amiable woman, the situation of physician to the town of Brugg became vacant, which he was invited by the inhabitants to fill; and accordingly resinquished the pleasures and advantages he enjoyed at Berne, and returned to the place of his nativity, with a view to settle himself there for life. His time, however, was not so entirely engrossed by the duties of his profession, as to prevent him from indulging his mind in the pursuits of literature; and he read almost every work of reputed merit, whether of Physic, Moral Philosophy, Belles Lettres, History, oyages, or even Novels and Romances, which the various presses of Europe from time to time produced The Novels and Romances of England, in particular, gave him great delight. But the amusements which Brugg afforded were extremely confined: and he fell into a state of nervous languor, or rather into a peevish dejection of spirits, neglecting society, and devoting himself almost entirely to a retired and sedentary life. Under these circumstances, this excellent and able man passed fourteen years of an uneasy life; but neither his increasing practice, the success of his literary pursuits,* the exhortations of his *The following is a correct list of his writings, in the order in which they appear to have been published: 1. Dissertatio Inauguralis de Irritabilitate, 4to. Gottingen, 1751. 2. The life of Professor Haller, 8vo. Zurich, 1755, 3. Thoughts on the Earthquake which was felt on the 9th of December, 1755, in Swisserland. Ato. 1756, friends, nor the endeavours of his family, wer able to remove the melancholy and discontent tha preyed continually on his mind. After some fruitless efforts to please him, he was in the be. ginning of April, 1768, appointed by the interest of Dr. Tissot, and Baron Hockstettin, to the post of principal physician to the King of Great Britain, at Hanover; and he departed from Brugg, to take possession of his new office, on the 4th of July, in the same year. Here he was plunged into the deepest affliction by the loss of his amiable wife, who after many years of lingering suffer. ance, and pious resignation, expired in his arms, on the 23d of June, 1770; an event which he has described in the following Work, with eloquent tenderness and sensibility. His children too, were to him additional causes of the keenest anguish and the deepest distress. His daughter had, from her earliest infancy, discovered symptoms of consumption, so strong and inveterate as to defy all the powers of medicine, and which, in the summer of 1781, destroyed her life. The character of this amiable girl, and the feelings of her afflict. ed father on this melancholy event, his own pen 4. The Subversion of Lisbon, a Poem, 4to. 1756. 5. Meditations on Solitude, 8vo. 1756. 6. Essay on National Pride, 8vo. Zurich, 1764. 7. Treatise on Experience in Physic, 8vo. Zurich, 1764. 8. Treatise on the Dysentery, 8vo. Zurich, 1767. 9. Essay on Solitude, 4to. 1773. 10. Essy on Lavater's Physiognomy, Hanover, 1778. 11. Essays, consisting of agreeable and instructive Tales, 8vo. 1779. 12. Conversations with the King of Prussia. 13. Treatise on Frederick the Great, 1778. 14. Select views of the Life, Reign and Character of Frederick the Great. 15. A variety of Works published in the Helvetic Journal and in the Journals of the Physio logical Society at Zurich. 16. A Work on Zoology. has very affectingly described in the following Work. But the state and condition of his son was still more distressing to his feelings than even the death of his beloved daughter. This unhappy youth, who, while he was at the university, discovered the finest fancy and the soundest understanding, either from a malignant and inveterate species of scrophula, with which he had been periodically tortured from his earliest infancy, or from too close an application to study, fell very early in life into a state of bodily infirmity and mental languor, which terminated, in the month of December, 1777, in a total derangement of his faculties; and he has now continued, in spite of every endeavour to restore him, a perfect idiot for more than twenty years. The domestic comforts of Zimmerman were now almost entirely destroyed; till at length, he fixed upon the daughter of M. Berger, the king's physician at Lunenbourg, and niece to Baron de Berger, as a person in every respect qualified to make him happy, and they were united to each other in marriage about the beginning of October, 1782. Zimmerman was nearly thirty years older than his bride but genius and good sense are always young and the similarity of their charac. ters obliterated all recollection of disparity of age. It was at this period that he composed his great and favourite work on solitude, thirty years after the publication of his first essay on the subject. It consists of four volumes in quarto: the two first of which were published in 1784; and the remaining volumes in 1786. "A work," says Tissot, "which will always be read with as much profit as pleasure, as it contains the most sublime conceptions, the greatest sagacity of observation, and extreme propriety of application, much ability in the choice of examples, and (what I can. not commend too highly, because I can say nothing that does him so much honour, nor give him any praise that would be more gratifying to his own heart) a constant anxiety for the interest of reli gion, with the sacred and solemn truths of which his mind was most devoutly impressed." The King of Prussia, while he was reviewing his troops in Silesia, in the autumn of the year 1785, caught a severe cold, which settled on his lungs, and in the course of nine months brought on symptoms of an approaching dropsy. Zimmerman, by two very flattering letters of the 6th and 16th of June, 1786. was solicited by his Majesty to attend him, and he arrived at Potzdam on the 23d of the same month; but he immediately discovered that his royal patient had little hopes of recovery; and, after trying the effect of such medicines as he thought most likely to afford relief, he returned to Hanover on the 11th of July following. But it was not Frederick alone who discovered his abilities. When in the year 1788, the melancholy state of the King of England's health alarmed the affection of his subjects, and produced an anxiety throughout Europe for his recovery, the government of Hanover dispatched Zimmerman to Holland, that he might be nearer London, in case his presence there became necessary; and he continued at the Hague until all danger was over. Zimmerman was the first who had the courage to unveil the dangerous principles of the new philosophers, and to exhibit to the eyes of the German Princes the risk they ran in neglecting to oppose the progress of so formidable a league. He convinced many of them, and particularly the Emperor Leopold the Second, that the views of these illuminated conspirators were the destruc: tion of christianity, and the subversion of all regular government. These exertions, while they contributed to lessen the danger which threatened his adopted country, greatly impaired his health. In the month of November, 1794, he was obliged to have recourse to strong opiates to procure * The king only survived the departure of his physician five weeks: he died on the 11th of Au gust, 1786. |