expreffive; he fpoke with great precifion on every fubject; when he converfed upon medicine, which was frequently the cafe, I obferved in him the moft profound principles and the clearest understanding. He had loft his first wife in June, 1770, and it was not till October, 1782, that he entered again into the marriage union. Both his matrimonial alliances were, however, propitious to his felicity. The happiness of this latter union was never difturbed for a moment; and during the last years of his life, this excellent woman was the tutelary angel that directed, fuftained, and confoled him. He was thirty years older than her, which in the generality of connubial engagements, would have been looked upon as a great difparity; but genius is never either young or old, and perfons endow ed with it are always of the fame age. It was at this period that he refumed, and finished, near thirty years after his firft effay, his great work on Solitude. It is in four volumes; the two firft of which appeared in 1784, and the two laft in 1786. His work upon Solitude was received with great eclat, not only in Germany, but wherever German is read, and procured him a correfpondence which gratified him extremely; I mean that of the emprefs of Ruffia, to whom the book had been sent without his knowledge: it was not indeed to be expected that he should think of offering to fuch a sovereign a work which fo well paints the happiness to be enjoyed in retirement from the world. That princefs, however, was fo well pleased with it, that the determined herfelf, to fend her thanks to the author. The 26th of January, 1786, a courier from M. de Groffe, envoy from Ruffia to Hamburgh, brought M. Zimmerman a small box containing a ring, fet with diamonds of extraordinary fize and beauty, with a golden medal, bearing on one fide the figure of the emprefs, and on the other the happy reform of the Ruffian monarchy. That princéfs had also added a note in her own hand-writing, containing these remarkable VOL. II. LI words; words: "To M. Zimmerman, counsellor of ftate, and phyfician of his Britannic majefty, to thank him for the excellent precepts he has given mankind in his book upon Solitude." This note was accompanied by a letter from M. de Grosse, who proposed to him, by defire of the Emprefs, to come and pafs a few months in the fummer at St. Petersburgh, because the wifhed to be perfonally acquainted with him. His letter to the emprefs was full of expreffions of gratitude; but he wrote to M. de Groffe, that he feared he could not undertake the journey without endangering his health, though if her majefty continued to defire it, he would undertake it. The empress difpenfed with it in the most gracious manner, by writing to him, "that fhe did not with his health fhould fuffer on account of the pleasure the should experience from the journey." This correfpondence lafted fix years, till the commencement of 1791, when the empreis dropped it all at once. The ordinary fubjects of their letters were politics, literature, and philofophy. "All thofe of the empress contain the most elevated fentiments, and every mark of an amiable mind." Phyfic was never once mentioned; but the often faid to him, and feemed to with him to fay in public, that her health was good, and did not cost her thirty fols* a year. She, however, caufed it to be proposed to him, without appearing in it herself, to eftablish himself at St. Petersburgh as her first physician; and he was offered a falary of ten thoufand roubles. When he had refufed the offer, the defired him to procure young phyficians and furgeons for her armies, and for thofe towns of the empire that were in want of them; several of thofe he fent have become rich and happy; and, in gratitude for the fervice he had rendered the state, she sent to him the crofs of the order of Wladomir; another time the fent him two elegant golden medals, ftruck in *Fifteen pence honour honour of M. Morloff, upon account of the plague at Moscow, and the deftruction of the Turkish fleet. He was foon after invited to attend on the late king of Pruffia, at Potzdam, where he arrived on the 23d of June, 1786. He has given us the particulars of this journey, with the enthusiasm of a man who had, from his youth, contemplated the hiftory of Frederick the Great. He loved that prince; and, far from feeing him in the light of the author of "The Pruffian Monarchy," he published in German, immediately upon the appearance of that work, in 1788, " Frederick the Great defended against the Count de Mirabeau;" and, in the year 1790, having collected other papers and converfations, he combined them under the following title, in vols. 12mo. 66 Fragments of Frederick the Great; being Collections toward a History of his Life, of his Reign, and of his Character." Is it not furprizing that Zimmerman, who was an immortal advocate for the grand doctrines of Chriftanity, fhould have been fo infatuated in his admiration of the king of Pruffia, fometimes known by Frederick the Great, as not to perceive that the monarch whom he fo greatly admired, was in league for the deftruction of our common religion, with men of fome talents, but of no principle whatsoever? The letters of the late Frederick are no fecret: his correfpondence with Voltaire, Diderot, &c. &c. &c. is open to the inspection of the public. At the time when thofe letters appeared, they were not treated with that attention which they demanded. Though avowed, it was hardly believed, that the fcheme of extirpating the Chriftian fyftem from the nations of Europe, and with it the whole of their civil habits and conftitutions, would be perfevered in, and, as we know but too well, in part accomplished by a few atheistical men. But the reader fhall fee, in the clear colour of unbiaffed narration, the origin of these frightful diftempers. In going to the north, which for feveral ages paft has been the cradle of fects, as the fouth had heretofore been, Zimmerman did not lofe fight of them. He faw one fpring up under his eye which attracted his whole attention, and well merited that of the whole univerfe, fince it is evident that its aim is, finally, to destroy all religion and all order it is the Secret Society of the Illuminated of Germany, which is faid to be totally different from the Illuminated, or Martinifts of France, who appear to them more ridiculous than dangerous*, and belong to the ancient Roficrucians, who are called by the Germans, in derifion, 'Erleuchete. The fects of Mefmerifm, of Caglioftrifm, and of Martinifm, have, fucceffively, engroffed the converfation of France; they have been admired by women of every description, who, in the mania of phyfical fciences, imagine themfelves Baillys or Lavoifiers, when they have repeated a few phrases which they do not understand. They have been embraced, protected, and professed, by many little men with great names; by fome men of ability, feduced by the love of the marvellous, and by the pleasure of defending, and even rendering plaufible the most abfurd opinions; followed by the idle multitude, to whom any thing that can, for a moment, rescue them from their infignificance is precious, and utterly despised by all enlightened men. The two former are dead and forgotten †, and if the third * I have not feen the creed of this fect, and I do not know whether it has been published; but it is very attracting by one of its generally known, and certainly well-proved attributes, the raifing of fpirits. The report of the commiffaries named to examine magnetifm, compofed by the late M. Bailly, is a chef d'œuvre which demonitrates its nullity: but reafon has never cured enthufiatm, ridicule does it much more effectually. The licu tenant third still exift, it is in fo feeble a ftate as to be in continual expectation of diffolution. But fuch is not the cafe with the Secret Order of the Illuminated of Germany, which has made rapid progrefs. Zimmerman knew all its principles, felt all their danger, paid great attention to their progrefs, and wished to make others, whofe intereft it was to prevent their effects, equally vigilant. Let this feet, which I must neceffarily fpeak of, but which I mention with regret, because I know nothing of it myself, let this fect, I fay, be that of the Freemafons, or of the Jefuits, which is very improbable, fince we know of no doctrine belonging to the firft, which has become an inftrument in the hands of the Illuminated*, and we find nothing in all the inculpations made tenant of police, who thought it improper to tolerate any longer this madness, or to act against it with feverity, recollected, probably, that nothing had been able to prevent all Paris from running to the phyfican of Chaudray, but that he had been introduced in a ridiculous fcene in a comedy, and from that time was no more fpoken of. He employed the fame means a witty piece, called The Modern Doctors, was played, and nothing more was heard of tubs, fomnambulism, or being en rapport. Other fects in medicine, which came a few years fince from the north, more dangerous than Mesmerism, and which have alfo found followers, (what extravagant fyltem may not hope to find them?) extremely well deferve the repetition of this comedy. There have appeared in the German language, several works on the Illuminées. I know of none in French, (though there certainly may be others) except Mirabeau on "The Pruffian Monarchy under Frederick the Great;"—" Secret Hiftory of the Court of Berlin ;" and "Letters to the author of the Quotidienne, by one of its Subscribers." It is from the late M. Zimmerman's letters, from fome other information, of the truth of which I cannot doubt, and from these three works, that I shall deduce what I have farther to say of them. "The heads of the Illuminated founded their order upon that of the Jefuits, but propofing views diametrically oppofite."-Mirabeau, Pruffian Monarchy, vol. v. page 97. L13 againit |