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] one day: 'Dr. So-and-so is to have your Pension, I am told; now, by all right, it should belong to me, don't you think so?'" What, "I" thought of the matter, seeing the greedy gentleman thus "parting my skin," may be conjectured!--