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: [_Betrachtungen
uber die Einsamkeit, von Doctor J. G. Zimmermann, Sta