Moses Mendelssohn wrote to Lessing on 29 November 1770, informing him that he was finally sending him “the Ferguson” which Lessing had been so anxious to read. Before receiving an answer, Mendelssohn wrote Lessing a second time, in mid-December, apologizing for his failure to send “the Ferguson.” Gleim, who was to have brought the book to Wolfenbüttel, had slipped out of Berlin with J. G. Jacobi without a word to Mendelssohn, and now Moses was sending the book by mail. In a postscript Mendelssohn asks Lessing if he has seen in the Jenaische Zeitung von gelehrten Sachen what J. C. Lavater read from the diary of his travels before the Consistory in Zurich. Mendelssohn tells Lessing that he has been unable to pass the matter over in silence. He has asked Lavater for an explanation, and if this does not prove satisfactory, he will be obliged to say certain things which both parties will find unpleasant.