AN ESSAY ON NATIONAL PRIDE, WHETHER ARISING FROM EXCELLENCIES REAL OR IMAGINARY: WITH AN EXAMINATION OF ITS Advantages and Disadvantages; AND OBSERVATIONS ON RELIGIOUS, REPUBLICAN AND MONARCHICAL PRIDE. German of Translated from the Ger JOHN GEORGE ZIMMERMANN Counsellor and Chief Physician to his Britannic Majesty, &c. &c. THE TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. THIS little work, which is strongly marked with that freedom of opinion and originality of sentiment by which its author was eminently distinguished, first appeared in the year 1758. The estimation in which it was held by the public is sufficiently attested by the rapidity of its sale, and the extensive demand which soon exhausted several successive editions. It was not to the fellow-citizens of the author, or to the nation in whose language it was written, that the circulation of this performance was confined; foreign countries were eager to naturalize the interesting stranger, and to pay him that tribute of applause which was so justly his due. This was not the result of a momentary impulse of admiration; the merits of Zimmermann still continue to be highly appreciated,* and his works will be relished as long as the * It is a coincidence no less singular than it is honorable to the memory of Zimmermann, that, at the very time when this collection of Modern Classic writers was begun with his Treatises" On Solitude," and “ National Pride," the same works were selected to commence a series of Italian translations of the best German prose-writers, undertaken at Florence. |