1

of October, 1782, Zimmerman was nearly thirty years older than his bride but genius and good fenfe are always young; and the fimilarity of their characters obliterated all recollection of difparity of age. She was well acquainted with the English language; fpoke Italian with great elegance and correctnefs; revifed his compofitions with critical taste e and found judgment; and continued to the laft moment of her life his tutelar deity, a pleafing companion of his profperity, and his fupport and confolation in adverfity. He went with her into company, had frequent parties, at his own houfe, and enjoyed an agreeable fociety, which reftored him occafionally to his former gaiety and good humour.....

+

፡

It was at this period that he compo

F

fed his great and favourite work on So litude, thirty years after the publication of h firft effay on the fubject. It confifts of four volumes in quarto; the two firft of which were published in 1784; and the remaining volumes in 1786.

6

A work," fays Tillot, which will always be read with as much profit as

HE

C 2

pleasure, as it contains the most fu

ods blime conceptions, the greatest faga-city of obfervation, an extreme pro*priety of application, much ability in the choice of examples, and (what I * cannot commend too highly, because I

い

J

- can fay nothing that does him so much honour, por give him any praise that bffwould be more gratifying to his own heart) a conftant anxiety for the intérefts of religion, with the facred and folemn truths of which his mind was 55 most devoutly impreffed, il bed. During his refidence at Berlin, in 91771, he had been invited to Potzdam by the King of Pruffia, and had frequent conferences with his Majefty refpecting the state of his health. The particulars of thefe conferences he communicated by letter to a friend, who, anxious to promulgate the honour Zimmerman had received, fhewed it very injudiciously to feveral perfons, from whose communications it was, without the author's confent, at length published; but in fo falfe and mutilated a state, that he was induced d to print a genuine copy of t it

in his own name. The king, while he was reviewing his troops in Silefia in the autumn of the year 1785 caught a fewere cold, which fettled on his lungs, Iand in the courfe of nine months brought Ion symptoms of an approaching dropfy. Zimmerman, by two very flattering letters of the 6th and 16th of June, 1786, was folicited by his Majesty to attend him, and he arrived at Potzdam on the 23d of the fame month; but he immediately difcovered that his royal patient had little hopes of recovery; and, after trying the effect of fuch medicines as he thought most likely to afford relief, he returned to Hanover on the 11th of July following, where he published a avery particular and interefting account of his journey, and of the various conoverfations he had had with the King. [He shad, indeed, from his youth, attended to the history of the King of Pruffia with that intereft with which the -mana of genius follows the career of a great character, and entertained a high -nies ad tot f c 3 betslitum, hgs The King only furvived the departure of his Phyician five weeks: he died on the 17th of August, 1486.

+

admiration of the talents, and a firm attachment to the perfon, of this hero. But it was not Frederick alone who difcovered his abilities. When, in the year 1788, the melancholy ftate of the King of England's health alarmed the affection of his fubjects, and produced an anxiety throughout Europe for his recovery, the government of Hanover dif patched Zimmerman to Holland, that he might be nearer London in cafe his prefence there became neceffary; and he continued at the Hague until all danger was over. The invitation of the difcerning Frederick, and the felection of the Hanoverian Minifter, who had for twenty years witneffed his abilities, gave new and flattering teftimonies of his medical fkill, and afforded him that highly pleafing gratification which accompanies a confcioufness of the public efteem. Beloved by his particular friends, enjoying the confidence of three most potent fovereigns, poffeffing the voluntary ap probation of the public, an ample for tune, and all the comforts of domestic life, his fituation feemed to afford him

*

once more the profpect of returning hap pinefs. But we muft not estimate thes profpects of felicity by the complexion of exterior circumstances. Difeafe fre quently racked his body with excruciating anguilh; and his mind, enervatedj perhaps, by the blandishments of profperity, occafionally recoiled upon itself and plunged him into languor and de fpondency. A new feries of vexations alfo, proceeding from two different causes, fprung up at this period, and continued to poifon all the fources of his happiness during the remainder of his life.

i

1

Zimmerman feems to have either for got or defpifed the danger which always accompanies the tafk of writing the hif tory of monarchs during the lives of their contemporaries; but he admired the character of the King of Prufiu with enthufiaftic ardour; and even so far from viewing it in the light in which it was placed by a work written by Mirdbeau, and published in 1788, intitled, "The Pruffian Monarchy," that he boldly entered the lifts in favour of his royal friend, and published first a pamphlet,

C 4