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 _rechauffé_, 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 supposed
of Ossian, that anybody could write a great amount of such stuff if he
would only consent to abandon his mind to the task.

With the supplementary chapters commence topical allusions to the
recently issued memoirs of Baron de Tott, an enterprising Frenchman who
had served the Great Turk against the Russians in the Crimea (an English
translation of his book had appeared in 1785). The satire upon this
gallant soldier's veracity appears to be quite undeserved, though
one can hardly read portions of his adventures without being forcibly
reminded of the Baron's laconic style. It is needless to add that the
amazing account of De Tott's origin is grossly libellous. The amount of
public interest excited by the æronautical exploits of Montgolfier and
Blanchard was also playfully satirised. Their first imitator in England,
Vincenzo Lunardi, had made a successful ascent from Moorfields as
recently as 1784, while in the following year Blanchard crossed the
channel in a balloon and earned the sobriquet _Don Quixote de la
Manche_. His grotesque appropriation of the motto "_Sic itur ad astra_"
made him, at least, a fit object for Munchausen's gibes. In the Baron's