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: [_Betrachtungen uber die Einsamkeit, von Doctor J. G. Zimmermann, Stadtphysicus in Brugg_ (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.