M. Achenval the knowledge of the states 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 paff ed at Goettingen were, as may be feen, well employed. He gave himfelf up to ftudy with the greateft 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 laft 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 discovery was reserved for M. Haller.

"Gliffon, a celebrated English anatomift, had remarked, in fome parts of the human body, a fingu lar 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 necef fary 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 ne ceflary that he should tell him what he wished to have difcovered, 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 concufions, are by Zimmerman, who registered down his experiments, his researches, 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 diftinguifhed characters (Meffrs. Afh, Aurivitius, De Brun, Caftel, Meckel, Schobinger, Fre

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delenbourg and Zinn), he went to pafs fome mouths in Holland, where he became extremely at tached to M. Gaubius; and from thence to Paris, where he spent much of his time with M. Senac, in whom he found a great refem blance to his former inftructor M. Brendel.

"In 1752,M.Zimmerman return ed to Berne, where he almoft im mediately enjoyed great confidence in his practice, and had the pleafure of again finding his early acquaintance, who received him with the utmost cordiality. It was then that he published in the Neuchatel Journal, without his name, a Let-. tér to M. ****, a celebrated Phyfician, concerning M. Haller."

"While he refided at Berne, Haller came there to see 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 expressed a wifh 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 hap pinefs 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 related 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 fweetness 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 con tinue their union.

"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 requested. M. Zimmerman to undertake it. It is natural to love the places where we have paffed our youth; and he had there rela tions, friends, and an excellent houfe, which, notwithstanding his agreeable situation at Berne, deter mined him to return to his natal foil.

"It was at this, time that an acquaintance commenced between M. Zimmerman and myfelf; an ac quaintance which has been endeared by reciprocal affection."

"His reputation in practice was established when he arrived at Brug, and he became immediately the phyfician not only of the town, but of all the country round, in which the patients were very nu merous. But this was ftill not fufficient wholly to occupy his ardent mind, or fatisfy his thirst for knowledge; each fresh acquifition only ferved to increase the defire for more, M. Zimmerman read much, not only in phyfic, but in morality, philofophy, literature, hiftory, tra vels, and periodical publications, Even novels he did not defpife. It is indeed difficult to difcover why good works of that fort fhould be lightly efteemned. There are no li terary productions in which man is fo well drawn, the refources of his mind fo well difclofed, and the fe cret receffes of his heart fo clearly developed. Good novels are the na tural hiftory 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 acquaint ed, gave him the greatest pleasure;

and

to the hypochondria, and the hypochondria increased his tafte for folitude, which may also exist 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 fcru pulous exactnefs. It was a duty, and the discharge of it gave him pleafure; befides, he loved phyfic; an extraordinary, difficult, or dangerous disorder engaged his extremeft attention, and he scarcely ever quitted his patient."

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

"Without having ever feen 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'vember 1755, concerning the

"When the fits of the hypo. chondria 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 agree able to every body; and, above all, that nobody can think he has a right to receive more than he gives.

"In this fituation Zimmerman paffed fourteen years of his life, dividing his time between the ftudy nd the practice of phy fic, in readng good books on other fubjects, in compofing, and in correfpond. ng with his friends. His letters

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'which he related without addition or abridgment: the fecond was a plan of a catechifm for fmall towns;' a fatire upon feve ral ridiculous cuftoms; and, as the fame customs are to be found in towns of great inequality, more than one thought itself the object of the raillery, and became extreme. ly angry; and one of the authors of the Journal was very near being ill-treated while paffing through W******"

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

"He formed also the plan of his treatife upon Experience in Phyfic,' of which he fent me a very detailed sketch; and it was in fpeaking to me about this work that he defined a quack to be, a wife man who profits from the folly of ethers;' although there

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

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

"In 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."

"From 1758 to 1763 he devoted to his treatife on Experience' all the leifure time which an extenfive practice among not only the people of Brug, but thofe of the furrounding country to a great distance, 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 thofe of Phyfic of Paris, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, and lastly, 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 for. ✨ merly; and the other was the Baron de Kl-, 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 minifters of several 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 confi dence. 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 there. fore obtained no appointment. Haller even advised him against it, and thought he would do much better to afcend the chair of prac tical Profeffor of Phyfic at Goettin gen, which he was fure of pro curing for him. Zimmerman neither much affected that fort of occupation, nor the air of Goettin-' gen, which he was afraid would not agree either with his own health, or that of his wife or of his mother-in-law; he refused the place, as did alto M. I redelenbourg, and it was at laft given to M. 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 defigned 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

"M. Zimmerman had fome idea of writing a treatife on the Va'pours and on Hypochondria,' diforders on which he had made some good obfervations; but he foon abandoned the project. His em ployments (as plainly appeared to his friends) did not prevent him from being extremely difcontent ed 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 persons who appeared to me moft

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