which link them fo firmly to fociety. It is not in fuch enjoyments that men can feel the dignity of thofe duties, the performance of which Nature has rendered productive of fo many pleafures, or hope to taste that true felicity which refults from an independent mind and a contented heart a felicity feldom fought after, only because it is fo little known, but which every individual may find within his own bofom. Who, alas! does not conftantly experience the neceffity of entering into that facred afylum to fearch for confolation under the real or imaginary misfortunes of life, or to alleviate indeed more frequently the fatigue of its painful pleafures? Yes, all men, from the mercenary trader, who finks under the anxiety of his daily task, to the proud statesman, intoxicated by the incenfe of popular applaufe, experience the defire of terminating their arduous career. Every bofom feels an anxiety for repofe, and fondly wifhes to fteal from the vortex of a bufy and perturbed life to enjoy the tranquillity of Solitude.

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Hackney'd in business, wearied at that oar "Which thousands, once chain'd fast tò, quit no more, "But which, when life at ebb runs weak and low, "All wifh, or feem to wifh, they could forego, "The statesman, lawyer, merchant, man of trade, "Pants for the refuge of a peaceful shade; "Where, all his long anxieties forgot "Amidft the charms of a fequefter'd spot, "Or recollected only to gild o'er,

"And add a fmile to, what was fweet before, "He may poffefs the joys he thinks he fees, "Lay his old age upon the lap of cafe,

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Improve the remnant of his wasted span, "And, having liv'd a trifler, die A MAN."

IT is under the peaceful fhades of Solitude that the mind regenerates and acquires fresh force; it is there alone that the happy can enjoy the fulness of felicity, or the miferable forget their woe; it is there that the bofom of fenfibility experiences its moft delicious emotions; it is there that creative genius frees itself from the thraldom of society, and furrenders itself to the impetuous rays of an ardent imagination. To this defired goal all our ideas and defires perpetually tend. "There is," fays Dr. JOHNSON, "fcarcely 66 any writer who has not celebrated the

"happiness

"happiness of rural privacy, and de"lighted himself and his readers with the "melody of birds, the whisper of groves, " and the murmurs of rivulets; nor any man eminent for extent of capacity, or "greatness of exploits, that has not left. "behind him fome memorials of lonely "wisdom and filent dignity."

The original Work from which the following pages are felected, confifts of four large volumes, which have acquired the univerfal approbation of the German Empire, and obtained the fuffrages of an Empress celebrated for the fuperior brilliancy of her mind, and who has fignified her approbation in the most flattering manner.

ON the 26th of January, 1785, a courier, difpatched by the Ruffian Envoy at Hamburgh, prefented M. ZIMMERMAN with a fmall cafket, in the name of her Majefty the Emprefs of Ruffia. The cafket contained a ring fet round with diamonds of an extraordinary fize and luftre; and a gold medal, bearing on one fide the portrait of the Empress, a 5 and

and on the other the date of the happy reformation of the Ruffian Empire. This prefent the Empress accompanied with a letter, written with her own hand, containing these remarkable words :-" To "M. ZIMMERMAN, Counfellor of State, "and Phyfician to his Britannic Majefty, "to thank him for the excellent Precepts he has given to Mankind in his Treatife 66 upon SOLITUDE."

OF

ZIMMERMAN.

JOHN GEORGE ZIMMERMAN, the Author of the following Treatife on Solitude, which we now prefent to the public in a more correct and fplendid form, was born, on the eighth day of December, 1728, at Brugg, a fmall town fituated on the borders of the river Aar, near the caftles of Windich and Altemberg, in the canton of Berne, about seventeen miles to the north-west of the city of Zurich, in Swifferland.

His father, John Zimmerman, whofe ancestors had, for a feries of years, defervedly obtained the applause and admiration of their fellow citizens, by their perfonal merits, and, patriotic exertions for the interefts of the Republic, was eminently diftinguifhed as an able and