and with perfect naturalness and simplicity. He spoke as a man of the
world, without circumlocution; his adventures were numerous and perhaps
singular, but only such as might have been expected to happen to a man
of so much experience. A smile never traversed his face as he related
the least credible of his tales, which the less intimate of his
acquaintance began in time to think he meant to be taken seriously.
In short, so strangely entertaining were both manner and matter of his
narratives, that "Munchausen's Stories" became a by-word among a host of
appreciative acquaintance. Among these was Raspe, who years afterwards,
when he was starving in London, bethought himself of the incomparable
baron. He half remembered some of his sporting stories, and supplemented
these by gleanings from his own commonplace book. The result is a
curious medley, which testifies clearly to learning and wit, and also
to the turning over of musty old books of _facetiæ_ written in execrable
Latin.

The story of the Baron's horse being cut in two by the descending
portcullis of a besieged town, and the horseman's innocence of the fact
until, upon reaching a fountain in the midst of the city, the insatiate
thirst of the animal betrayed his deficiency in hind quarters, was
probably derived by Raspe from the _Facetiæ Bebelianæ_ of Heinrich
Bebel, first published at Strassburgh in 1508.

There it is given as follows: "De Insigni Mendacio. Faber clavicularius
quem superius fabrum mendaciorum dixi, narravit se tempore belli,
credens suos se subsecuturos equitando ad cujusdam oppidi portas
penetrasse: et cum ad portas venisset cataractam turre demissam, equum
suum post ephippium discidisse, dimidiatumque reliquisse, atque se
media parte equi ad forum usque oppidi equitasse, et caedem non modicam
peregisse. Sed cum retrocedere vellet multitudine hostium obrutus, tum