arranged, form novels ad infinitum; and my old disease of laffitude again crept upon me with accumulated violence.

I was advised to marry: but I had paffed the age, when to the charm of novelty might be added all the delights of romanticity; and having no difficulty to encounter from the want of fortune, the hard-heartedness of parents, or the fevere prudery of the fair, I entered into the state with the moft ftoical indifference; chiefly arifing from an idea I indulged, that I was fuperior to all earthly enjoyments. This apathy foon reached me in matrimony. My wife was without any of those difcordant qualifications which throw acid into the entertainment, and wearinefs again hung upon every enjoyment. The amusements of town, indeed, for near two winters, gave a temporary relief to this malady; but public entertainment foon ceafed to attract. The charms of mufic no longer vibrated on my nerves with delight, and the choruffes of Handel paffed away with indifference. Plays, like novels, (for in fact they are merely novels perfonified) quickly difgufted me, as I could not enjoy a repetition of the fame pun, nor fmile at the buffoonery of clownish folly. The company of vifitants was equally infipid: not being calculated to partake the tattle of impertinence, the fneers of felfconfequence, or the whispers of envy and fcandal.

Thus, fir, my whole life is a fcene of inanity and ennui. My children themselves fcarcely afford any refource, as my mind unhappily feeks for fomething fuperior to what fome call the pleafures of domeftic felicity which appear to me trifling and puerile. I frequently wish that I could obliterate all my knowledge, and drown in the waters of Lethe all those refined ideas which have unfitted me for the common and cuftomary events of life. I fhould then, when I arofe in the morning, have fotme occupation that demanded my attention, and contributed to amufe: I fhould lay down to reft, not fatigued with the weariness

of

of idleness; and look forward to the morning, as the dawn of new hopes, and new prospects: and you, fir, would not have been wearied with the complaints of a man, whose fituation thousands behold with envy; but which, from an imagination too vivid, or a wrong impreffion of education, is rendered completely unfit for the world.

G. W.

A

MEMOIRS OF M. ZIMMERMAN.

(Concluded from page 406.)

CORRESPONDENCE foon commenced be. tween M. Zimmerman and a great number of perfons who faw and thought as he did; but, although this correfpondence gave him infinite fatisfaction, it nevertheless impaired his force.

Among thefe correfpondents he met with one of whom he no more thought, while writing the "Memoirs of Frederic," than he had thought of the empress of Ruffia, when writing his treatife on "Solitude." In 1791 he received fome very preffing letters from M. Hoffinan, a man of great learning, and profeffor of eloquence at Vienna, who appeared very zealous for the caufe of good order, propofed establishing a journal for its defence, and requested directions, advice, and materials. M. Zimmerman was very punctual in anfwering him; and in feveral letters hinted at means to be employed by the princes for fuppreffing thefe new revolutionifts. In a fhort time M. Hoffman informed him that the emperor (Leopold II.) patronifed his journal, and was determined to exert his utmost authority to crush the league. Thus informed of the fentiments of this prince, M. Zimmerman thought it proper to addrefs to him a memorial, in which he explained all he knew of the principles of the fect, and the danger of it, with the beft methods of preventing its fatal confequences,

quences. This memorial was prefented the beginning of February, and on the 28th he received a letter, in which the Emperor testified his approbation of the work, and presented him with a mark of his gratitude : it was a box fet in diamonds, with his cypher. A letter from the perfon whom he had employed to prefent his work, and with whom the Emperor had conversed concerning it, entered into very minute details relative to the intentions of that prince, and declared that Leopold had refolved immediately to employ the measures which he (M. Zimmerman) had recommended; and farther, that in order to extend their influence, the affair fhould be reprefented to the diet of Ratisbon, as an object which demanded the most ferious deliberation. He was very right in thinking that the concurrence of all the powers was neceffary to deftroy a fociety fo diffusive; this concurrence had not hitherto been acted upon; the perfons exiled from Munich, had been received with open arms in other courts; a journal fuppreffed at Berlin, by the reigning king, was reprinted at Altona; the duke of Brunswick forbid one in his dominions, which was foon after revived in Holftein.

M. Zimmerman was, without doubt, much flattered by receiving marks of approbation from so enlightened a judge; but this circumftance conftituted but a fmall portion of the pleafure which he experienced from the Emperor's letter. To form a just idea of this pleasure, it is neceffary to imagine that we behold a man very induftriously and almoft folely employed for feveral years paft, in difcovering the fources, expofing the danger, and endeavouring to point out expedients to prevent the dreadful confequences of a fcourge fallen on the earth, of which he had already feen millions of victims, and the ravages of which extended with astonishing rapidity; who had not till then had the leaft fuccefs, who had made a multitude of enemies by his courage and perfeverance, but who at laft fees the greatest monarch in Europe adopt his ideas, thank him for his zeal, ap

prove his measures, and put his own hand to the execution of the work. But after having participated with M. Zimmerman in his gratification, let us conceive what he felt when, a few days after, he was informed of the unexpected death of the Emperor, accompanied with very myfterious circumftances. It is eafy to imagine what a fevere ftroke this fudden death of his patron must have inflicted upon his fufceptible mind.

M. Hoffman, having loft his protector, was perfecuted by his enemies, who compelled him to abandon his journal, the first work of the kind that had oppofed the torrent: they fucceeded in depriving him of his profefforship, and obliged him to quit Vienna; but they could not prevent his continuing to write with the fame courage and zeal.

M. Zimmerman foon recovered from the dejection into which this event had thrown him, and redoubled his activity: he extended his correfpondence; and published fresh pamphlets. He not only wrote himfelf, but he difperfed the works of the other defenders of the fame caufe; and this was no eafy tafk, as many bookfellers were in the intereft of the Secret Order, which purfued him as their most dangerous enemy. Notwithstanding this difficulty, however, of getting printed what was unfavourable to the Illuminated, there appeared, in 1793, a small work, the title of which I do not know, nor do I think the author is known, but which gave rife to much converfation. It is the report of an honeft man, who, having been drawn into the fociety, remained therein, when he began to understand its principles, only to found the depth of the doctrine, and then expofed every thing that was not known. The whole was taken from the ftatutes of the order, in the hand-writing of the heads of it.

From what I have juft faid of the principles of the Secret Society of the Illuminated, will not intelligent men remark, that if the fociety is guilty of having spread thofe principles over all Germany, one cannot charge it

with the horror of the invention; are they not all implied in this execrable passage celebrated in France long before the known exiftence of the Illuminated, and generally attributed to Diderot: "Mankind will never be perfectly free and happy, until the laft king fhall be ftrangled with the bowels of the laft prieft?" When Voltaire formed an association with his friends to destroy religion, which he expreffes by the word infamous; when he reproaches D'Alembert, for not having fe conded him with fufficient vigour in this fine project, ought not one to look upon him as one of the founders of this odious fyftem!

Deeply impreffed with the importance of his caufe, Zimmerman gave himself up to labours that rapidly deftroyed his health; not only in as much as an unremitted occupation of the mind hurts it more than any thing elfe, but alfo, becaufe when he was employed in any work, his manner of living was changed in a very prejudicial manner: he rofe very early in the morning, and wrote a long while before he began vifits, and in the evening, after having finished the profeffional bufinefs of the day, instead of eafing and diverting his mind in fociety, he again went to work, and remained at it frequently till a very late hour. His mind was thus in continual action, and his body had not the repcfe it required; he bore up, however, very well for feveral years; and on the 4th October, 1794, he wrote me a letter, in which there is the fame ftrength of expreffion, the fame juftnefs of thought, and the fame precifion of arrangement, as in thofe preceding: he there clearly pointed out the progrefs of the fociety, which became daily more dangerous: "She is mistress of almoft every prefs, of every bookseller, of every German journal, and of all the courts. The caufes of the difafters of this laft campaign are the fame as thofe of the events at Châlons, in 1762." This letter alfo contained the most lively expreflions of his joy at hearing of my cure; yet there was one fentence bearing traces of the