"Manteufel was Saxon by birth, long a Minister of August the Strong, but quarrelled with August, owing to some frail female it is said, and had withdrawn to Berlin a few years ago. He shines there among the fashionable philosophical classes; underhand, perhaps does a little in the volunteer political line withal; being a very busy pushing gentleman. Tall of stature, 'perfectly handsome at the age of sixty;' [Formey, _Souvenirs d'un Citoyen,_ i. 39-45.] great partisan of Wolf and the Philosophies, awake to the Orthodoxies too. Writes flowing elegant French, in a softly trenchant, somewhat too all-knowing style. High manners traceable in him; but nothing of the noble loyalty, natural politeness and pious lucency of Suhm. One of his Letters to Friedrich has this slightly impertinent passage;--Friedrich, just getting settled in Reinsberg, having transiently mentioned 'the quantity of fair sex' that had come about him there:-- "'BERLIN, 26th AUGUST, 1736 (to the Crown-Prince).... I am well persuaded your Royal Highness will regulate all that to perfection, and so manage that your fair sex will be charmed to find themselves with you at Reinsberg, and you charmed to have them there. But permit me, your Royal Highness, to repeat in this place, what I one day took the liberty of saying here at Berlin: Nothing in the world would better suit the present interests of your Royal Highness and of us all, than some Heir of your Royal Highness's making! Perhaps the tranquil convenience with which your Royal Highness at Reinsberg can now attend to that object, will be of better effect than all those hasty and transitory visits at Berlin were. At least I wish it with the best of my heart. I beg pardon, Monseigneur, for intruding thus into everything which concerns your Royal Highness;'--In truth, I am a rather impudent busybodyish fellow, with superabundant dashing manner, speculation, utterance; and shall get myself ordered out of the Country, by my present correspondent, by and by.--'Being ever,' with the due enthusiasm, 'MANTEUFEL.' [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxv. 487;--Friedrich's Answer is, Reinsberg, 23d September (Ib. 489).] "To which Friedrich's Answer is of a kind to put a gag in the foul mouth of certain extraordinary Pamphleteerings, that were once very copious in the world; and, in particular, to set at rest the Herr Dr. Zimmermann, and his poor puddle of calumnies and credulities, got together in that weak pursuit of physiology under obscene circumstances;-- "Which is the one good result I have gathered from the Manteufel Correspondence," continues our German friend; whom I vote with!--Or if the English reader never saw those Zimmermann or other dog-like Pamphleteerings and surmisings, let this Excerpt be mysterious and superfluous to the thankful English reader.