tall, agile, and fo very thin towards the latter part of his life, that his limbs feemed cadaverous. His complexion was fallow, and he had an unfortunate caft of his eyes, that rendered his face particularly liable to be caricatured. The miniftry of that day were fo fenfible of the advantages to be derived from this fpecies of ridicule, that Hogarth was actually bought off from the popular party by means of a penfion, and earned a difhonourable reward by employing his graver in fatirifing his former friends. Notwithstand ing the defects of his perfon, Mr. Wilkes at one time actually fet the fashions, and introduced blue hair powder on his return from France, in 1769.

Towards the latter part of his life he became regardless of his drefs, and his wardrobe for the laft fifteen years feems to have confifted of a faded scarlet coat, white cloth waistcoat and breeches, and a pair of military boots, in which he was accuftomed to walk three or four times a week, from Kensington to Grofvenor-fquare, and from Grofvenor-fquare to Guildhall. Like moft of the old school, he never defcended from the dignity of a cocked hat; and it is but of late that he abjured the long-exploded fafhion of wearing a gold button and loop. His ready wit was proverbial, and he never miffed an opportunity of being jocular at the expence of his colleagues. Sometimes he would difconcert the gravity of a city feaft by his fatire; and when he told the late Alderman Burnell (formerly a bricklayer) who feemed to be unable to manage a knife in the fimple

operation of cutting a pudding, "that he had better take his trowel to it," he fet the whole corporation in a roar.

As a man of pleasure, he facrificed to his paffions, not unfrequently at the expence of his happiness, and even of his character. The scandal attached to the Order of St. Francis*, of which he was a member, operated confiderably against the influence of his politics; it is not a little remarkable, however, that men, not the most famous for the chastity of their manners, such as the Lords Sandwich and March (the latter is the prefent Duke of Queensbury) fhould have been the moft eager to detect and expofe the follies of his loofer moments.

It cannot be denied that his conduct as a magiftrate was not only unexceptionable, but fpirited and exemplary; and as a guardian of the morals of the city youth, he has not been excelled by any of his predeceffors. The fame candour that dictates these observations, obliges the author at the fame time to confefs that he was dilatory in the production of the city accounts, and rather too attentive to the emoluments of office.

As an author, he poffeffed the fingular merit of always writing to and for the people. His fuccefs was proportionate, and he actually wrote down at least one adminiftration, which is more than can be faid of any man of the prefent age. His merits can only be appreciated by the benefits he has conferred on his country. It was he who first taught the public to confider the king's fpeech as the mere fabri

proper to be commented on; applauded, or treated with contempt. By his bold and determined con-duct in the cafe of the city printers, he annihilated the power of commitment affumed by the speaker's warrant, and rendered the jurifdiction of the ferjeant at arms fubject to the controul of a conftable. He punifhed defpotic fecretaries of ftate, by holding them up to public fcorn, abolifhed general warrants, and obliged even Lord Manffield to declare them unlawful. But this was not all; he contributed to render an Englifman's houfe his caftle, for it is to him we are indebted for the benefit of having our pa pers confidered as facred, in all cafes hort of high treafon. The moft daring miniiter must now particularize his victim by name, and he cannot attempt to rob us of our fecrets, without at the fame time endeavouring to bereave us of our

lives.

In short, with all his faults, Mr. Wilkes poffeffed fomething more than the vapour of patriotifm; he could face poverty and banishment, defpife a jail, refift corruption, attack and overcome tyranny. Had his existence ceased at the close of the American war, his memory, however, would have been more refpected; he outlived his reputation; and, it is painful to add, that when he died at his daughter's houfe in Grofvenor-fquare, on Tuefday December 27th, 1797, in the feventy-third year of his age, he was nearly forgotten. Diftance blends and foftens the fhades of large objects: Time throws her mantle over petty defects. The prefent age alicady confeffes that he was a perfecuted, the next will probably confider him

name will be connected with our hiftory; and if he does not occupy the chief place, a niche, at leaf, will be tenanted by him in the temple of Fame,

Anecdotes of Zimmerman. From his Life by Tiflot.

JOHN George Zimmerman was

His

born in December 1728, at Brug, a town in the German part of the canton of Bern. His father, the fenator Zimmerman, was born of a family which had been diftinguished, during feveral ages, for the merit and integrity with which they paffed through the first offices of the government. mother, of the name of Pache, was the daughter of a celebrated counfellor at Morges, in the French part of the fame canton; which accounts for the circumstance of the two languages being equally familiar to him, though he had paffed only a very fhort time in France. Young Zimmerman was educated at home till he reached the age of fourteen, when he was fent to ftudy the belles lettres at Bern. After three years had been thus employed, he was transferred to the fchool of philofophy; where the prolix comments on the metaphyfics of Wolf feem much more to have difgufted than enlightened him The death of both parents leaving him at liberty to choose his deftination in life, he determined to embrace the medical profeffion, and went to Gottingen in 1747. Here his countryman, the illuftrious Haller, took him into his own house, directed his ftudies, and treated him as a fon and a friend. Befides the

proper

proper medical profeffors, Zimmerman attended the mathematical and phyfical lectures, and gained a knowledge of English literature. He paffed four years in this univerfity; part of the iaft of which he employed in experiments on the doctrine of irritability, firft propofed by the English anatoinift Gliffen, and afterwards purfued with fo much fuccefs by Haller. Zimmerman made this principle the fubject of his inaugarai theis, in 1751; and the clearnefs of ftyle and method with which he explained the doctrine, with the ftrength of the experimental proofs by which he fupported it, gained him great reputation. Our anatomical readers are doubtlefs acquainted with the controverfies which this new fyftem excited. Though Haller was generally confidered as its author, feveral attacks were directed against Zimmerman in particular, which he was wife enough to difregard, leaving his facts to speak for themfelves.

After a few months fpent in a tour to Holland and France, he returned to Bern in 1752, where he was received with great cordiality. In this year he published an account of Haller, in a fhort letter to a friend, inferted in the journal of Neufchatel, and written in French. Though his only work in that language, it has much elegance of ftyle; and it was the bafis of his Life of Haller which was published at Zurich in 1755, a large 8vo, in German. During his ftay at Bern he married a very amiable and cultivated lady, a relation of Haller, of the name of Meley, then widow of a M. Stek. Shortly afterward, the poft of public phyfician to his native town of Brug becoming va

cant, he received an invitation to occupy it; with which he complied. Here he earneftly devoted himfelf to the ftudies and duties of his profeffion; not neglecting, however, thofe literary purfuits which are neceffary to fill up the time of a man of education, in a place which affords few of the refources of fuitable fociety. He amufed himfelf occafionally with writing little pieces, which he fent to a journal printed at Zurich under the title of The Monitor. As his pleafures were almoft exclufively confined to his family and his ftudy, he here contracted that real or fuppofed love for folitude, which gave fuch a colour to his writings, if not to his life. It feems, however, at first to have been rather forced than natural; and to have been the fplenetic resource of a man who was never well fatisfied with the obfcurity of a fituation which was by no means adequate to his talents and reputation. In this place, his years paffed on ufefully for the improvement of his mind; but, as it appears, not very happily. His natural fenfibility, from a want of objects to divert it, preyed on itfelf; and he was rendered miferable by a thousand domeftic cares and anxieties, which he would have felt much more lightly in the tumult of public life. He took, however, the beft method in his power for relief, by employing his pen with affiduity on profeifional and literary topics. In 1754, he fent to the PhyficoMedical Society of Bafil, a very good cafe of fpafmodic quincy, together with fome obfervations on the hysteric tumours of Sydenham. In 1755 he compofed a fhort poem, in German, on the earthquake of Lifbon; which was much efteemed

by

by adequate judges, and placed him among the earlieft improvers of that language. In 1756 appeared his firft Effay on Solitude: a very fhort performance. Two years afterward, he began to enlarge its plan, and to collect materials for his more extended publication on this fubject. He alfo formed the plan of his work on the Experience of Medicine, of which the first volume appeared in 1763. In 1758 he publifhed his Effay on National Pride, which paffed with rapidity through feveral editions, and was tranflated into foreign languages, and much admired. In this performance is one of thofe predictions of an approaching revolution in Europe, which are to be found in various works of literature-but, as M. Tiffot thinks, nowhere with more fagacity and exactnefs. "The univerfal spread of light and philofophy, the vices demonftrated in the exifting mode of thinking, the attacks on received prejudices, all fhew a boldness in opinion which announces a revolution; and this revolution will be happy if it be directed by political wifdom and fubmiffion to the laws of the state: but, fhould it degenerate into criminal audacity, it will coft to fome their property, to others their liberty, to many their life."

Notwithstanding a copious medical practice, now extended by many foreign confultations, and the literary employment of his leifure, Zimmerman's difcontent with his fituation was fuch, that his friends, and particularly his prefent biographer, made various efforts to procure him a new establishment; none of which were as yet fuccefsful. It appears,

indeed, that his own irrefolution, and a kind of timidity which always adhered to him, were the principal obftacles in fome inftances. Meantime, however, he did not cease to lay the folid foundations of more extenfive fame by profeffional writings. An epidemic fever, which reigned in Switzerland in the years 1763, 4, and 5, and which in the latter year changed to a dyfentery, furnished him with a copious store of obfervations, and produced his Treatife on the Dysentery, which gained him great reputation. This was the laft confiderable medical work that he compofed, though he continued to write short pieces on occafional topics. It should not be omitted that his cordial friend, M. Tiffot, by addreffing to him his own letters on the prevailing epidemic, contributed to extend his profeffional fame. At length, the vacant poft of Phyfician to the King of England at Hanover, which had been offered to M. Tiffot, was by his intereft procured for Zimmerman; and being accepted, he removed to Hanover in 1768.

This new fituation, however, was far from producing the acceffion of happiness which was expected from it.

A few days after his arrival, he loft the lord of the regency who was most attached to him. The diforder, of which he first felt the commencement while he refided at Brug, conftantly increased, and was accompanied with acute pains, which fometimes rendered irkfome the execution of his duty. The jealoufy of a colleague, now dead, caufed him a number of thofe flight irritations which he would

not

not have felt when in health, but which the state of his nerves now rendered almost infupportable. Some perfons thought he would do any thing to conciliate their goodwill, and would have had him every moment with them. "Women who drank coffee with George II. perfuade themfelves that I ought to be at their command, as I fhould have been at his." They would have made him their flave; and this was a part not adapted for him. He knew that it was for the difeafe, not the patient, to regulate the number and the hours of a phyfician's visits; and he always acted on this principle: but the perfons whofe caprices he thwarted did not take pains to make his abode agreeable. The health of his wife, which always determined his own, declined rapidly; while that of his children, which had never been ftrong, did not become fo. Luckily, the public confidence foon forced him to a continued occupation, which is the fureft resource against uneafinefs. His patients in Hanover, confultations from all the north, and patients who themselves came to confult him, at length difpelled his melancholy.

In 1770, he had the misfortune of lofing his wife; a deprivation which touched him moft fenfibly; and at the fame time his own complaint grew worse. His friend Tiffot advised him to feek the beft chirurgical affiftance, and perfuaded him, in 1771, to go to Berlin and put himself under the care of the celebrated Meckel. He was received into this furgeon's houfe; and an operation was performed which fucceeded. The time of his convalefcence was one of the most agreeable in his life. He made a

number of acquaintances among diftinguished characters at Berlin, was prefented to the king, and was honoured with particular notice from him. His reception on his return to Hanover was equally pleafing. He now again plunged into bufinefs, and again domestic and profeffional cares brought on hypochondriacal complaints. 1775, by way of vacation, he made a journey to Laufanne, where his daughter was placed for education, and paffed five weeks with M. Tiffot.

M. Zimmerman was unhappy in the fate of his children. His amiable daughter, whom he most tenderly loved, fell into a lingering malady foon after he had left Laufanne, which continued five years, and then carried her off;-while his fon, who was from infancy troubled with an acrid humour, after various viciffitudes of nervous affections, fettled in perfect idiocy; in which ftate he has now remained twenty years. To alleviate these diftreffes, a fecond marriage properly occurred to the minds of his friends, and they chose for him a moft fuitable companion, in the daughter of M. de Berger, king's phyfician at Lunenburg. union took place in 1782, and proved the greatest charm and fupport of all his remaining life. His lady was thirty years younger than him, but the perfectly accommodated herfelf to his tafte, and induced him to cultivate fociety abroad and at home more than he had hitherto done. About this time, he employed himself in completing his favourite work on Solitude; which, at the distance of thirty years from the publication of the firft effay on the fubject, ap

The

peared