of Ruffia. The cafket contained a ring fet round with diamonds of an extraordinary fize and luftre; and a gold medal, bearing on one fide the portrait of the Empress, and on the other the date of the happy reformation of the Ruffian Empire, This prefent the Empress accompanied with a letter, written with her own hand, containing these remarkable words:" To M. "ZIMMERMAN, Counsellor of State "and Phyfician to his Britannic Ma"jefty, to thank him for the excellent "Precepts he has given to Mankind in "his Treatife upon SOLITUDE,"

THE LIFE

OF

ZIMMERMAN.

JOHN GEORGE ZIMMERMAN, the Author of the following Treatife on Salitude, which we now prefent to the public in a more correct and splendid form, was born, on the eighth day of Decem ber, 1728, at Brugg, a fmall town fituated on the borders of the river Aar, near the castles of Windich and Altemberg, in the canton of Berne, about seventeen miles to the north-west of the city of Zurich in Swifferland.

His father, John Zimmerman, whofe ancestors had, for a feries of years, defervedly obtained the applaufe and admiration of their fellow citizens, by their perfonal merits, and patriotic exertions for the interefts of the Republic, was eminently distinguished as an able and

eloquent member of the provincial council. His mother, who was equally respected and beloved for her good fenfe, eafy manners, and modeft virtues, was the daughter of the celebrated Pache, who refided at a beautiful villa near Morges, in the fame canton, and whofe extraordinary learning and great abilities had contributed to advance him to a feat in the parliament of Paris.

P

The father of Zimmerman, anxious for the future eminence of his fon as a fcholar, undertook the arduous task of fuper intending his education, and, by the af fiftance of the ableft preceptors that could be procured, inftructed him in the rudiments of all the ufeful and ornamental sciences until he had attained the age of fourteen years, when he fent him to the University of Berne, where, under Kirchberger, the hiftorian and profeffor of rhetoric, and Altman, the celebrated Greek profeffor, he studied, for three years, Philology and the Belles Lettres, with unremitting affiduity and attention. Scarcely, however, had he

1

entered on his courfe of ftudy, when his industry was for a while interrupted by the fudden death of his affectionate father; a misfortune which bereaved him of his ableft inftructor, and tore his heart with the fevereft affliction; but as time foftened his filial forrows, he renewed his. ftudies with unceafing diligence and ardour.

1

The various and frequently complicated systems of philofophy which have been from time to time introduced into the world, excited his curiofity and ftimulated his industry; and, to render himself a perfect master of this extenfive branch of learning, he placed himself under the tuition of Brunner, one of the most zealous difciples of the Baron de Wolf; but the profeffor, unfortunately, was only fkilled in the metaphyfical doctrines of his great master; and, instead of leading the mind of his pupil into the broad and flowery paths of real ethics, he bewildered him in the dark and thorny mazes of vain and useless learning, until M. Tribolet and J. Stapfer, two ministers

of the gospel, equally renowned for exalted piety, ardent genius, and extenfive knowledge, happily extricated him from this dangerous labyrinth, and taught him, as he frequently afterwards acknowledged with the warmest gratitude, the found doctrines of true philofophy.

Having paffed nearly five years at the university, he began to think of applying the ftores of information he had acquired to the purposes of active life; and, with a view of confulting his mother refpecting the profeffion he fhould choofe, he vifited, towards the end of the year 1746, his maternal relations at Morges, where the then refided. But, alas! the kind affiftance which he fondly hoped to derive upon this important fubject from her judgment and opinion, death had rendered it impoffible for him to obtain. Diftreffing, however, as this unexpected event was at fuch a juncture, it afforded him the advantage of following more freely his own unbiaffed inclination; a circumftance which is generally conceive ed to contribute to fuccefs; and, after