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M. Achenval the knowledge of the ftates of Europe. It is doubtful whether the leffons he received from this mafter were leffons of politics properly fo called, or of that fcience which now makes fo much noise under the name of ftatiftics; but from feveral paffages in his letters I am inclined to think they comprized the principles of both.

"The four years which he paffed at Goettingen were, as may be feen, well employed. He gave himfelf up to ftudy with the great eft ardour; and was fupported by that inward feeling which already told him what he fhould one day become. In taking poffeffion for him of an estate left him in this country by an aunt, I found in one of his letters, dated from Goettingen in 1748, the following paffage: I lead here the life of a man who wishes to live after his death. This life, however, is not that which brings good health; and his began already to decay. He had at that time a flight attack of the hypochondria.

"Part of the last year that he spent at Goettingen was employed upon a work which afterward became the bafis of his reputation. The continual action of the heart, which from the first moment of animation, until death, never ceases alternately to contract and dilate itself, with a regularity which is only deranged by certain paffions and certain diforders, has been regarded by obfervers as one of the moft curious phenomena of nature. Every phyfician who had ftudied the animal economy had endeavoured to explain it ; a multitude of caufes had been imagined, none of which were fatisfactory, because neither was the true one; and the

glory of the difcovery was referved for M. Haller.

"Cliffon, a celebrated English anatomift, had remarked, in fome parts of the human body, a fingular property of contraction upon being touched, although there fhould be no feeling in the part, and he called that property irritability. M. Haller imagined, that if the fibres of the heart had the fame property, as feveral operations appeared to indicate, it was without doubt the caufe of its movements; and he affumed this poftulatum in his Outlines of

Phyfiology,' which appeared in 1747. Still, however, it was only a conjecture, which it was neceffary to demonftrate or overturn; and M. Zimmerman undertook to make the requifite experiments. The general plan was, no doubt, given him by Haller; it was neceffary that he fhould tell him what he wished to have discovered, and point out the means which he intended fhould be employed: feveral experiments he fuggefted, and faw them performed; but it is not lefs true, that the greatest part of the work, its reduction to a plan, the perfpicuity of arrangement, and many of the conclufions, are by Zimmerman, who registered down his experiments, his refearches, and his reflections, in a thefis which is the fundamental work upon this fubject, and to which are fairly attributable all the changes that have fince been made in the theory of phyfic. From the moment when that book was published, the name of Zimmerman refounded through all Europe."

"Upon quitting Goettingen, where he had for fellow-ftudents the moft diftinguished characters (Meffrs. Afh, Aurivilius, De Brun, Caftel, Meckel, Schobinger, Fre

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delenbourg and Zinn), he went to pafs fome months in Holland, where he became extremely attached to M. Gaubius; and from thence to Paris, where he fpent much of his time with M. Senac, in whom he found a great refemblance to his forn:er inftructor M. Brendel.

"Shortly after his marriage, the poft of phyfician to the town of Brug, the falary of which is very moderate confidering the extent of the place, its revenue, and the duties attached to the fituation, became vacant, and the principal citizens requcfted M. Zimmerman to undertake it. It is natural to love the places where we have paffed our youth; and he had there relations, friends, and an excellent houfe, which, notwithstanding his agreeable fituation at Berne, determined him to return to his natal foil.

Zimmerman and myfelf; an acquaintance which has been endeared by reciprocal affection."

In 1752, M. Zimmerman returned to Berne, where he almoft immediately enjoyed great confidence in his practice, and had the pleafure of again finding his early acquaintance, who received him with the utmoft cordiality. It was then that he published in the Neuchatel "It was at this time that an acJournal, without his name, a Let-quaintance commenced between M. ter to M. ****, a celebrated Phyfician, concerning M. Haller." "While he refided at Berne, Haller came there to fee his friends, and to re-establish his health. At the end of feveral weeks he determined to return no more to Goettingen, but to fix his abode at Berne; in confequence of which he expreffed a wish that his pupil and friend would go to Goettingen to bring his family to him. Zimmerman undertook this journey with the more pleasure, as he, in common with all who had the happinefs of that lady's acquaintance, had the most perfect efteem for ma

dame Haller.

"Zimmerman's heart was fufceptible of ftrong attachments, and he formed one for a lady in all refpects worthy of him. She was refated to Haller, and widow of a Mr. Stek. Her maiden name was Meley. She poffeffed good fenfe, a cultivated mind, elegant tafte; and what is ftill more valuable, that sweetness of manner, that equability of temper, that foothing charm of voice, which fo frequently recalled his finking fpirits during the time that it pleafed heaven to continue their union.

"His reputation in practice was established when he arrived at Brug, and he became immediately the physician not only of the town, but of all the country round, in which the patients were very numerous. But this was ftill not fufficient wholly to occupy his ardent mind or fatisfy his thirst for knowledge; each fresh acquifition only ferved to increafe the defire for more. M. Zimmerman read much, not only in phyfic, but in morality, philofophy, literature, hiftory, travels, and periodical publications. Even novels he did not defpife. It is indeed difficult to difcover why good works of that fort fhould be lightly esteemed. There are no literary productions in which man is fo well drawn, the refources of his mind fo well difclofed, and the fecret receffes of his heart fo clearly developed. Good novels are the natural history of moral man, and ought on that account to be read with attention. English novels, and thofe of M. Wieland, with whom he was intimately acquainted, gave him the greatest pleafure;

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and he amufed his mind by com- whenever knowledge is properly mitting to paper the ideas which eftimated. (as with every man who thinks)" The greater part of these enwere produced by every perufal. joyments M. Zimmerman loft when Thefe he afterwards formed into he went to Brug: I do not mean fmall pieces, and had them infert- to fay that there are no perfons of ed in a journal intitled the Moni- good fenfe, no enlightened or amiateur, which was printed at Zurich, ble people in fmall towns; perhaps, and which I have heard commend there are even more, proportioned by very good judges. ably, than in large ones; and I know, by the letters I had from him there, that there were fuch in Brug; but in a fmall town the number of fuch perfons can be but few; they have their profeflions, their callings, and their family duties, to occupy their attention; they belong to fociety, and they do not like to feparate from it in order to give themselves up wholly to one friend. In this there is much to commend. Bcfide, a man of letters wants a public library, bookfellers, literary friends, and the neweft publications, which an individual who is not rich cannot eafily procure, and which lose their value if there is no one to con verfe with about them. A perfon who loves his profeffion is defirous of affociating with others who like it alfo, with whom he may confult, and to whom he may impart his discoveries.

"What he wrote to me on this occafion explains the intention with which he compofed his most confiderable work, and that to which he was moft attached, namely, his Treatife on Solitude;' I love folitude, and. I find pleasure ⚫ no where but at home; I write to procufe myself amufement.' It was natural for him to be happy at home; befide his wife, his motherin-law, a very fenfible woman, lived there with him; and in a twelvemonth after his marriage he had become a father. Yet he had not always loved folitude, and he once knew how to be happy away from home. This fudden change was in a great measure owing to the place of his abode, and it had the greatest influence over every moment of his life. Ever fince he had first quitted Brug to go to college, he had lived either at Berne or at Goettingen, and he had formed at both thofe places connexions with fenfible, intelligent, and anable young men, whofe converfation he truly enjoyed, as they enabled him to acquire knowledge, to difplay his talents, and exercife his genius; a high gratification, no doubt, to those who are happily fo endowed. He lived with affociates of his own age, and he found among his paticats perfons worthy his regard. He had also within his reach every affiftance neceffary for the cultivation of letters and the fciences, which is a very ftrong inducement

"M. Zimmerman felt too deeply all these wants; he complained of them, and his letters frequently recalled to my mind fome of thofe fpoiled children who, when they have not all the playthings they want, will not amufe themselves with those which they have; and whofe enjoyment of what they have, is deftroyed by reflections on what they have not."

"He found no allurements at

Brug, becaufe he thought there could be none there; having always had a very tender and delicate nervous fyftem, the frequent fenfation of difcontent threw him in

to the hypochondria, and the hypochondria increased his tafte for folitude, which may also exift without any trouble of the mind."

"M. Zimmerman's tafte for folitude did not, however, render him neglectful of the functions which his employment impofed upon him, and which he fulfilled with the greatest tenderness and moft fcrupulous exactnefs. It was a duty, and the difcharge of it gave him pleafure; befides, he loved phyfic; an extraordinary, difficult, or dangerous diforder engaged his extremeft attention, and he scarcely ever quitted his patient."

during that period prelented me, weekly, and fometimes oftener, with an exact account of his occupation as a phyfician, of his studies, of his plans, of his manner of living, of his troubles, and of his pleasures.

"Without having ever seen him, I knew him intimately, because no man was ever more open and unreferved to his friends, and I had him always in my mind's eye."

"From the time of his going to Brug, he wrote for the Journal of Zurich. Two of the pieces he published in it, excited much converfation in every place where the Journal was read. The first of thefe was a dream that he had in the night of the 5th of No

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"Upon leaving his patients M. Zimmerman ufually returned home; and when he went into company it was generally either to please Mad.vember 1755, concerning the Zimmerman, or upon fome particular occafions, when he was rather compelled by neceffity than courted by pleasure."

"When the fits of the hypochondria had left him, which fometimes happened, his gaiety returned, and for a few days he would, from choice, mix in fociety; the true fpirit of which, and what can alone render it interefting, is, that every one brings his fhare of amufement according to his means; that those who are most able give moft; that every one carries thither that good-humour which confifts in the making himself agreeable to every body; and, above all, that nobody can think he has a right to receive more than he gives.

'ftate of the foul after death, 'which he related without addition or abridgment: the second was a plan of a catechifm for

fmall towns,' a fatire upon feveral ridiculous customs; and, as the fame cuftoms are to be found in towns of great inequality, more than one thought itself the object of the raillery, and became extremely angry; and one of the authors of the Journal was very near beog ill treated while pafling through W******.

His firft effay upon Solitude appeared toward the end of 1756. It is a very short work, and has been tranflated within thefe few years into Italian by M. Antoni, a very able phyfician of Vicenza."

"He formed alfo the plan of "In this fituation Zimmerman his treatife upon Experience in paffed fourteen years of his life, Phyfic, of which he fent me a dividing his time between the ftudy very detailed sketch; and it was and the practice of phyfic, in read- in fpeaking to me about this work ing good books on other fubjects, that he defined a quack to be, a in compofing, and in correfpond-wife man who profits from the ing with his friends. His letters folly of others;

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certainly never was a man who difliked that fort of wifdom more than himself.

"The first volume did not appear till the end of 1763, and was not tranflated before 1774. It is the art of obferving, illuftrated by fome excellent remarks, with the best rules for drawing advantage from observations."

"An 1758 M. Zimmerman publifhed his work on National

Pride,' four editions of which were rapidly printed, each under his own infpection; it was tranflated into French at Paris in 1769, and has just been reprinted there."

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"From 1758 to 1763 he devoted to his treatise on Experience' all the leisure time which an extenfive practice among not only the people of Brug, but thofe of the furrounding country to a great diftance, and even ftrangers who came to confult him, afforded. In 1760 he was admitted a member of the fociety at Berlin; and fince that time of feveral other literary bodies, who were eager to receive him. He belonged to the focieties of Zurich, Berne, Bafle, Munich, Palermo, Pezaro, Goettingen, and to those of phyfic of Paris, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and Jaftly, in 1786, he was received into the academy of St. Petersburgh.

likely to procure it for him. One was Haller, with whom he was no longer on fuch good terms as formerly; and the other was the Baron de KI-, who was here for his health, and who, having been a long time minifter at one of the courts of Germany, had a great deal of intereft with the ministers of feveral others. These two gentlemen turned their thoughts toward the Electorate of Hanover; and M. Zimmerman was fo well known, that he might have been prefented any where with confidence. The Hanoverian minifter wrote to the Baron de Kl-, to intreat that he would endeavour to procure for M. Zimmerman one of the first places in the king's gift, in fome of the principal towns of the electorate. Zimmerman, however, would not accept of a place any where but at Hanover, in or der that he might be near M. Werlhoff, for whom he had the greatest respect and attachment. He therefore obtained no appointment. Haller even advised him against it, and thought he would do much better to afcend the chair of practical Profeffor of Phyfic at Goettingen, which he was fure of procuring for him. Zimmerman neither much affected that fort of occupation, nor the air of Goettingen, which he was afraid would not agree either with his own health, or that of his wife or of his mother-in-law; he refufed the place, as did alfo M. Tredelen

"M. Zimmerman had fome idea of writing a treatife on the Vapours and on Hypochondria,' diforders on which he had made fome good obfervations; but he foon abandoned the project. His embourg, and it was at laft given to M. ployments (as plainly appeared to his friends) did not prevent him from being extremely discontented with his fituation. I was forry for it, and felt that he was made for a more confpicuous scene of action. I neglected nothing that might intereft in his favour the two perfons who appeared to me most

Schroeder. Some time after this it was in agitation to fend for him to Berne, upon the death of his friend M. Ith; but this, though defigued by the majority of the lords of the council of health, was overturned by thofe fecret inftigators, who, in republics as in monarchies, have often more influence over affairs B 4

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