peared in its new form in the years 1784 and 1786, in 4 vols. His ideas of folitude had probably been foftened by fo long an intercourfe with the world; and as he now defined it "that ftate of the foul in which it abandons itself freely to its reflections," it was not neceffary to become either a monk or an anchorite in order to partake of its benefits. Had it not been prefented under fo accommodating a form, a philofopher might have fmiled at the circumftance of a recommendation of folitude from a court-phyfician, becoming the favourite work of one of the moft fplendid and ambitious of crowned heads. The Emprefs of Ruffia fent her exprefs thanks to the author for the pleafure which fhe had derived from the work, accompanied with a magnificent prefent, and commenced with him a regular correfpondence, which fubfifted with great freedom on her part till 1792; when the fuddenly dropped it. She alfo gave him an invitation to fettle at Petersburgh as her firft phyfician; and, on his declining the offer, the requested his recommendation of medical practitioners for her towns and armies, and conferred on him the Order of Wlado.

inir.

One of the moft diftinguifhed incidents of his life was the fummons which he received to attend the great Frederic in his laft illness, in 1786. It was at once evident that there was no room for the exereife of his medical skill: but he improved the opportunity which he thus enjoyed of confidential intercourfe with that illuftrious character, whofe mental faculties were pre-eminent to the laft; and he derived from it the materials of an

interefting narrative, which he af-terward published. The partiality of this prince in his favour naturally difpofed him to a reciprocal good opinion of the monarch; and in 1788 he publifhed a Defence of Frederic the Great against the Count de Mirabeau; which, in 1790, was followed by Fragments on Frederic the Great, in 3 vols. 12mo. All his publications, rela tive to this king, gave offence to many individuals, and fubjected him to fevere criticifin; which he felt with far more fenfibility than confifted with his peace of mind. His religious and political opinions likewife, in his latter years, began to be in wide contradiction with the principles that were affiduously propagated all over Europe; and this added perpetual fuel to his irritability. The Society of the Illuminated, coalefced with that of Free Mafons, rofe about this time in Germany, and excited the most violent commotions among men of letters and reflection. It was fuppofed to have in view nothing lefs than the abolition of chriftianity, and the fubverfion of all constituted authorities; and while its partizans expected from it the most. beneficial reforms of every kind, its opponents dreaded from it every mifclief that could poffibly happen to mankind. Zimmerman, who is reprefented by his friend as a hunter of fects, was among the first who took alarm at this formidable aflociation. His regard for religion and focial order, and perhaps his connexions with crowned heads, caufed him to fee in the moft obnoxious light all the principles of thefe new philofophers. He attacked them with vigour, formed counter affociations with other men

of

Anecdotes of Baron Born, the celebrated

Bohemian Chymift.

From Townfon's Travels in Hungary, 4to, /. 410.

HE Baron was born at Carlf

Tburg in Tranfylvania, of a

noble family, came early in life to Vienna, and studied under the Jefuits; who, no doubt, perceiving in him more than common abilities, and that he would one day be an honour to their order, prevailed on him to enter into it; but of this fociety he was a member only for about a year and a half. He then left Vienna and went to Prague, where, as it is the cuftom in Germany, he ftudied the law. As foon as he had completed his ftudies, he made a tour through a part of Germany, Holland, the Netherlands, and France; and returning to Prague, he engaged in the ftudies of natural hiftory, mining, and their connected branches; and in 1770 he was received into the department of the mines and mint at Prague. As we learn from his letters, this year he made a tour, and vifited the principal mines of Hungary and Tranfylvania, and during it kept up a correfpondence with the celebrated Ferber, who in 1774 published his letters. It was in this tour that he fo nearly loft his life, and where he was ftruck with that disease which embittered the reft of his days, and which was only rendered fupportable by a strong philofophic mind and active difpo

fition.

It was at Felfo-Banya where he met with this misfortune, as appears from his eighteenth letter to Mr. Ferber. He defcended here into a mine where fire was used to detach the ore, to obferve the efficacy of this means, too foon after the fire

had been extinguished, and whilst the mine was full of arfenical va

pours raifed by the heat. "My long filence," fays he to his friend Ferber, "is the confequence of an unlucky accident, which had almoft

coft me my life. "I defcended the

great mine to fee the manner of applying the fire, and its effects on the mine, when the fire was hardly extinet, and the mine was full of fmoke." How greatly he fuffered in his health by this accident appears from his letter which we mentioned when we fpoke of Tokay; where it will be remembered he complained that he could hardly bear the motion of his carriage. Upon this misfortune he haftened to Vienna. After this he was appointed at Prague counsellor of the mines. In 1771 he published a fmall work of the Jefuit Poda, on the machinery used about mines; and the next year his Lithophylacium Borneanum. This is the catalogue of his collection of foffils which he afterwards difpofed of to the Honourable Mr. Greville. This work drew on him the attention of mineralogifts, and brought him in-, to correfpondence with the firft men in this line. He was now made a member of the Royal Societies of Stockholm, Vienna, and Padua; and in 1774 the fame honour was conferred on him by the Royal Society of London.

During his refidence in Bohemia, he did not apply himself to the bu finefs of his charge alone; but his active difpofition induced him to feek for opportunities of extending knowledge, and of being ufeful to the world. He took a part in the work entitled Portraits of the Learned Men and Artifs of Bohemia and Meravia. He was likewife concerned in

the

the Acta Literaria Bohemiæ & Moravie; and the editor of the latter publicly acknowledges in the preface to it, how much Bohemian literature is indebted to him. Prague and Vienna were both without a public cabinet for the ufe of the ftudents: it was at his inftigation that government was induced to form one; and he himself affifted by his contributions and his labours. In 1775 he laid the foundation of a literary fociety; which published feveral volumes, under the title of Memoirs of a Private Society in Bohemia.

His fame reaching the Emprefs Mary Therefa, in 1776 fhe called him to Vienna to arrange and describe the imperial collection: and about two years after, he published the fplendid work containing the Conchology in the execution of this, I believe he had fome affiftance. The Empress defrayed the expences for a certain number of copies. On the death of this patron the work was difcontinued, her fucceffor, the Emperor Jofeph, not favouring the undertaking. He had likewife the honour of inftructing the Archduchefs Maria Anna in natural history, who was partial to this entertaining ftudy; and he formed and arranged for her a neat mufeum. In 1779 he was raifed to the office of Actual Counsellor of the Court Chamber, in the department of the mines and mint. This office detained him conftantly in Vienna, and engaged the chief part of his time.

The confequences of his misfortune at Felfo-Banya began now to be felt in the fevcreft manner; he was attacked with the moft excruciating colics, which rofe to fuch a degree as to threaten a fpeedy termination of his life and miferies. VOL. XXXIX.

In this depth of torment he had recourfe to the ufual calmer of bodily pain, opium; and a large portion of this being placed by the fide of him, which he was ordered only to take in fmall dofes;-once brought to defperation through the intensity of his pain, he swallowed it at one draught. This brought on a lethargy, which lafted four-and-twenty hours; but when he awoke he was free of his pains. The diforder now attacked his legs and feet, particularly his right leg, and in this he was lame for the reft of his life. Sometimes the lameness was accompanied by pain, fometimes not. But his feet by degrees withered, and he was obliged to fit or lie, or lean upon a fopha; though fometimes he was fo well as to be able to fit upon a ftool, but not to move from one room to another without affiftance.

With

His free and active genius led him to intereft himself in all the occurrences of the times, and to take an active part in all the inftitutions and plans for enlightening and reforming mankind. thefe benevolent intentions, he formed connections with the free mafons, whofe views in this part of the world were fomething more than eating and drinking, as may be conjectured by the laws and regulations made against masonry by the Emperor Jofeph. Under Therefa, this order was obliged to keep itfelf very fecret in Auftria; but Jofeph, on his coming to the throne, tolerated it; and the Baron founded in the Auftrian metropolis a lodge called the True Concord. This was no card club, or affociation for eating and drinking, where the leading members were chofen by their capacity for taking in folids and li Bb

quids,

quids, and where a good fong was confidered as a first rate qualification; but a fociety of learned men, whofe lodge was a place of rendezvous for the literati of the capital.

No doubt the obftacles thefe gentlemen would find to the progrefs of fcience and ufeful knowledge, in the church hierarchy, and in the cabals of courtiers, would draw their attention to political fubjects; and fubjects were really difcuffed here which the church had forbid to be fpoken of, and which the government must have wifhed not to be thought of. At their meetings, differtations on fome fubject of hiftory, ethics, or moral philofophy, were read by the members; and commonly fomething on the hiftory of ancient and modern myfteries, and fecret focieties. Thefe were afterwards publifhed in the Diary for Free Mafons, for the ufe of the initiated, and not for public fale. In the winter they met occafionally, and held more public difcourfes, to which the members of the other lodges were allowed access. As moft of the learned of Vienna belonged to this lodge, it was very natural to fuppofe that many of the differtations read here were not quite within the limits of the original plan of the fociety. It was thefe differtations, I believe, which gaverife to another periodical work, entitled, Phyficalifche Arbeiten der einwächtigen Freunde in Wien, which was continued for fome time by the Baren and his brother mafons. He was likewife aftive in extirpating fuperftitions of various kinds which had crept into the other lodges, and equally zealous in giving to thefe focieties fuch an organization as might render them useful to the public.

The Baron, and many others of his lodge, belonged to the fociety of the Illuminated. This was no difhonour to him: the views of this order, at least at first, seem to have been commendable; they were the improvement of mankind, not the deftruction of fociety. Such inftitutions are only useful or dangerous, and to be approved of or condemned, according to the ftate of fociety; and this was before the French revolution, and in a country lefs enlightened than almost any other part of Germany. So zealous a friend was he to them, that when the Elector of Bavaria ordered all thofe in his service to quit this order, he was fo difpleased that he returned the academy of Munich the diploma they had fent him on their receiving him amongst them, publicly avowed his attachment to the order, and thought it proper to break off all further connection with Bavaria as a member of its literary fociety. The free mafons did not long retain the patronage of their fovereign: the Emperor Jofeph foon became jealous of their influ ence, and put them under fuch refrictions, and clogged them with fuch incumbrances, as to amount almoft to a prohibition; and as fuch they acted, for the fociety found it neceffary to diffolve.

What raifed the Baron fo high in the public opinion, was his knowledge of mineralogy, and his fuccefsful experiments in metallurgy, and principally in the procefs of amalgamation. The ufe of quickfilver in extracting the noble metals. from their ores, was not a discovery of the Baron's, nor of the century in which he lived; yet he extended fo far its application in metallurgy, as to form a brilliant epoch in this