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====== TRAVELS OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN ======
===== THE SECOND VOLUME =====
==== PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME ====

Baron Munchausen has certainly been productive of much benefit to the
literary world; the numbers of egregious travellers have been such,
that they demanded a very Gulliver to surpass them. If Baron de Tott
dauntlessly discharged an enormous piece of artillery, the Baron
Munchausen has done more; he has taken it and swam with it across the
sea. When travellers are solicitous to be the heroes of their own
story, surely they must admit to superiority, and blush at seeing
themselves out-done by the renowned Munchausen: I doubt whether any
one hitherto, Pantagruel, Gargantua, Captain Lemuel, or De Tott, has
been able to out-do our Baron in this species of excellence: and as at
present our curiosity seems much directed to the interior of Africa,
it must be edifying to have the real relation of Munchausen's
adventures there before any further intelligence arrives; for he seems
to adapt himself and his exploits to the spirit of the times, and
recounts what he thinks should be most interesting to his auditors.

I do not say that the Baron, in the following stories, means a satire
on any political matters whatever. No; but if the reader understands
them so, I cannot help it.

If the Baron meets with a parcel of negro ships carrying whites into
slavery to work upon their plantations in a cold climate, should we
therefore imagine that he intends a reflection on the present traffic
in human flesh? And that, if the negroes should do so, it would be
simple justice, as retaliation is the law of God! If we were to think
this a reflection on any present commercial or political matter, we
should be tempted to imagine, perhaps, some political ideas conveyed
in every page, in every sentence of the whole. Whether such things are
or are not the intentions of the Baron the reader must judge.

We have had not only wonderful travellers in this vile world, but
splenetic travellers, and of these not a few, and also conspicuous
enough. It is a pity, therefore, that the Baron has not endeavoured to
surpass them also in this species of story-telling. Who is it can read
the travels of Smellfungus, as Sterne calls him, without admiration?
To think that a person from the North of Scotland should travel
through some of the finest countries in Europe, and find fault with
everything he meets--nothing to please him! And therefore, methinks,
the Tour to the Hebrides is more excusable, and also perhaps Mr.
Twiss's Tour in Ireland. Dr. Johnson, bred in the luxuriance of
London, with more reason should become cross and splenetic in the
bleak and dreary regions of the Hebrides.

The Baron, in the following work, seems to be sometimes philosophical;
his account of the language of the interior of Africa, and its analogy
with that of the inhabitants of the moon, show him to be profoundly
versed in the etymological antiquities of nations, and throw new light
upon the abstruse history of the ancient Scythians, and the
Collectanea.

His endeavour to abolish the custom of eating live flesh in the
interior of Africa, as described in Bruce's Travels, is truly humane.
But far be it from me to suppose, that by Gog and Magog and the Lord
Mayor's show he means a satire upon any person or body of persons
whatever: or, by a tedious litigated trial of blind judges and dumb
matrons following a wild goose chase all round the world, he should
glance at any trial whatever.

Nevertheless, I must allow that it was extremely presumptuous in
Munchausen to tell half the sovereigns of the world that they were
wrong, and advise them what they ought to do; and that instead of
ordering millions of their subjects to massacre one another, it would
be more to their interest to employ their forces in concert for the
general good; as if he knew better than the Empress of Russia, the
Grand Vizier, Prince Potemkin, or any other butcher in the world. But
that he should be a royal Aristocrat, and take the part of the injured
Queen of France in the present political drama, I am not at all
surprised; but I suppose his mind was fired by reading the pamphlet
written by Mr. Burke.


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Go to [[CHAPTER XXI]]