Yes, Doctor, this is your Kriegsgott; throned in a free-and-easy fashion. In regard to that of Sentries, I believe there do come up from Potsdam nightly a corporal and six rank-and-file; but perhaps it is at a later hour; perhaps they sit within doors, silent, not to make noises. Another gentleman, of sauntering nocturnal habits, testifies to having, one night, seen the King actually asleep in bed, the doors being left ajar. [Ib. i. 388.]--As Zimmermann had a DIALOGUE next day with his Majesty, which we propose to give;still more, as he made such noise in the world by other Dialogues with Friedrich, and by a strange Book about them, which are still ahead,--readers may desire to know a little who or what the Zimmermann is, and be willing for a rough brief Note upon him, which certainly is not readier than it is rough:--Johann Georg Zimmermann: born 1728, at Brugg in the Canton of Bern, where his Father seems to have had some little property and no employment, "a RATHSHERR (Town-Councillor), who was much respected." Of brothers or sisters, no mention. The Mother being from the French part of the Canton, he learned to speak both languages. Went to Bern for his Latin and high-schooling; then to Gottingen, where he studied Medicine, under the once great Haller and other now dimmed celebrities. Haller, himself from Bern, had taken Zimmermann to board, and became much attached to him: Haller, in 1752, came on a summer visit to native Bern: Zimmermann, who had in the mean time been "for a few months" in France, in Italy and England, now returned and joined him there; but the great man, feeling very poorly and very old, decided that he would like to stay in Bern, and not move any more;--Zimmermann, accordingly, was sent to Gottingen to bring Mrs. Haller, with her Daughters, bandboxes and effects, home to Bern. Which he did;--and not only them, but a soft, ingenious, ingenuous and rather pretty young Gottingen Lady along with them, as his own Wife withal. With her he settled as STADTPHYSICUS (Town-Doctor) in native Brugg; where his beloved Hallers were within reach; and practice in abundance, and honors, all that the place yielded, were in readiness for him.
Here he continued some sixteen years; very busy, very successful in medicine and literature; but "tormented with hypochondria;"--having indeed an immense conceit of himself, and generally too thin a skin for this world. Here he first wrote his Book on SOLITUDE, a Book famed over all the world in my young days (and perhaps still famed); he wrote it a second time, MUCH ENLARGED, about thirty years after: [<italic> Betrachtungen uber die Einsamkeit, von Doctor J. G. Zimmermann, Stadtphysicus in Brugg <end italic>
(Zurich, 1756),--as yet only "1 vol. 8vo, price 6d." (5 groschen);but it grew with years; and (Leipzig, 1784) came out remodelled into 4 vols.;--was translated into French, "with many omissions,"by Mercier (Paris, 1790); into English from Mercier (London, 1791).
"Zurich, 1763-1764:" by and by, one "Dobson did it into English."]
I read it (in the curtailed English-Mercier form, no Scene in it like the above), in early boyhood,--and thank it for nothing, or nearly so. Zimmermann lived much alone, at Brugg and elsewhere;all his days "Hypochondria" was the main company he had:--and it was natural, but UNprofitable, that he should say, to himself and others, the best he could for that bad arrangement: poor soul!
He wrote also on MEDICAL EXPERIENCE, a famed Book in its day;"also on NATIONAL PRIDE; and became famed through the Universe, and was Member of infinite Learned Societies.
All which rendered dull dead Brugg still duller and more dead;unfit utterly for a man of such sublime accomplishments. Plenty of Counts Stadion, Kings of Poland even, offered him engagements;eager to possess such a man, and deliver him from dull dead Brugg;but he had hypochondria, and always feared their deliverance might be into something duller. At length,--in his fortieth year, 1768, --the place of Court-Physician (HOFMEDICUS) at Hanover was offered him by George the Third of pious memory, and this he resolved to accept; and did lift anchor, and accept and occupy accordingly.
Alas, at the Gate of Hanover, "his carriage overset;" broke his poor old Mother-in-law's leg (who had been rejoicing doubtless to get home into her own Country), and was the end of her--poor old soul;--and the beginning of misfortunes continual and too tedious to mention. Spleen, envy, malice and calumny, from the Hanover Medical world; treatment, "by the old buckram Hofdames who had drunk coffee with George II.," "which was fitter for a laquais-de-place" than for a medical gentleman of eminence: unworthy treatment, in fact, in many or most quarters;--followed by hypochondria, by dreadful bodily disorder (kind not given or discoverable), "so that I suffered the pains of Hell," sat weeping, sat gnashing my teeth, and could n't write a Note after dinner;followed finally by the sickness, and then by the death, of my poor Wife, "after five months of torment." Upon which, in 1771, Zimmermann's friends--for he had many friends, being, in fact, a person of fine graceful intellect, high proud feelings and tender sensibilities, gone all to this sad state--rallied themselves;set his Hanover house in order for him (governess for his children, what not); and sent him off to Berlin, there to be dealt with by one Meckel, an incomparable Surgeon, and be healed of his dreadful disorder ("LEIBESSCHADE, of which the first traces had appeared in Brugg"),--though to most people it seemed rather he would die;"and one Medical Eminency in Hanover said to myself [Zimmermann]