o humorous waifs of this description, without fixed origin or
birthplace, did Raspe give a classical setting amongst embroidered
versions of the baron's sporting jokes. The unscrupulous manner in which
he affixed Munchausen's own name to the completed _jeu d'esprit_ is,
ethically speaking, the least pardonable of his crimes; for when Raspe's
little book was first transformed and enlarged, and then translated into
German, the genial old baron found himself the victim of an unmerciful
caricature, and without a rag of concealment. It is consequently not
surprising to hear that he became soured and reticent before his death
at Bodenwerder in 1797.

Strangers had already begun to come down to the place in the hope of
getting a glimpse of the eccentric nobleman, and foolish stories were
told of his thundering out his lies with apoplectic visage, his eyes
starting out of his head, and perspiration beading his forehead. The
fountain of his reminiscences was in reality quite dried up, and it
must be admitted that this excellent old man had only too good reason to
consider himself an injured person.

In this way, then, came to be written the first delightful chapters of
Baron Munchausen's "Narrative of his Travels and Campaigns in Russia."
It was not primarily intended as a satire, nor was it specially designed
to take of the extravagant flights of contemporary travellers. It
was rather a literary frivolity, thrown off at one effort by a
tatterdemalion genius in sore need of a few guineas.

The remainder of the book is a melancholy example of the fallacy
of enlargements and of sequels. Neither Raspe nor the baron can be
seriously held responsible for a single word of it. It must have been
written by a bookseller's hack, whom it is now quite impossible to
identify, but who was evidently of native origin; and the book is a
characteristically English product, full of personal and political
satire, with just a twang of edification. The first continuation
(chapters one and seven, to twenty, inclusive), which was supplied with
the third edition, is merely a modern _rechauffe_, with "up to date"
allusions, of Lucian's _Vera Historia_. Prototypes of the majority of
the stories may either be found in Lucian or in the twenty volumes of
_Voyages Imaginaires_, published at Paris in 1787. In case, however, any
reader should be sceptical as to the accuracy of this statement he will
have no very great difficulty in supposing, as Dr. Johnson s