through Gerlach Adolph von Munchausen, the great patron of arts and
letters and of Göttingen University, an introduction to Hieronynimus
Karl Friedrich von Munchausen, at whose hospitable mansion at
Bodenwerder he became an occasional visitor. Hieronynimus, who was born
at Bodenwerder on May 11, 1720, was a cadet of what was known as the
black line of the house of Rinteln Bodenwerder, and in his youth served
as a page in the service of Prince Anton Ulrich of Brunswick. When quite
a stripling he obtained a cornetcy in the "Brunswick Regiment" in the
Russian service, and on November 27, 1740, he was created a lieutenant
by letters patent of the Empress Anna, and served two arduous campaigns
against the Turks during the following years. In 1750 he was promoted to
be a captain of cuirassiers by the Empress Elizabeth, and about 1760 he
retired from the Russian service to live upon his patrimonial estate at
Bodenwerder in the congenial society of his wife and his paragon among
huntsmen, Rösemeyer, for whose particular benefit he maintained a fine
pack of hounds. He kept open house, and loved to divert his guests with
stories, not in the braggart vein of Dugald Dalgetty, but so embellished
with palpably extravagant lies as to crack with a humour that was all
their own. The manner has been appropriated by Artemus Ward and Mark
Twain, but it was invented by Munchausen. Now the stories mainly relate
to sporting adventures, and it has been asserted by one contemporary
of the baron that Munchausen contracted the habit of drawing such
a long-bow as a measure of self-defence against his invaluable but
loquacious henchman, the worthy Rösemeyer. But it is more probable, as
is hinted in the first preface, that Munchausen, being a shrewd man,
found the practice a sovereign specific against bores and all other
kinds of serious or irrelevant people, while it naturally endeared him
to the friends of whom he had no small number.

He told his stories with imperturbable _sang froid_, in a dry manner,