curiosity it may have to recommend it.

The work first appeared in London in the course of the year 1785. No
copy of the first edition appears to be accessible; it seems, however,
to have been issued some time in the autumn, and in the _Critical
Review_ for December 1785 there is the following notice: "Baron
Munchausen's Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns
in Russia. Small 8vo, IS. (Smith). This is a satirical production
calculated to throw ridicule on the bold assertions of some
parliamentary declaimers. If rant may be best foiled at its own weapons,
the author's design is not ill-founded; for the marvellous has never
been carried to a more whimsical and ludicrous extent." The reviewer had
probably read the work through from one paper cover to the other. It was
in fact too short to bore the most blasé of his kind, consisting of
but forty-nine small octavo pages. The second edition, which is in the
British Museum, bears the following title; "Baron Munchausen's Narrative
of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia; humbly dedicated and
recommended to country gentlemen, and if they please to be repeated as
their own after a hunt, at horse races, in watering places, and other
such polite assemblies; round the bottle and fireside. Smith. Printed at
Oxford. 1786." The fact that this little pamphlet again consists of but
forty-nine small octavo pages, combined with the similarity of title
(as far as that of the first edition is given in the _Critical Review_),
publisher, and price, affords a strong presumption that it was identical
with the first edition. This edition contains only chapters ii., iii.,
iv., v., and vi. (pp. 10-44) of the present reprint. These chapters are
the best in the book and their substantial if peculiar merit can hardly
be denied, but the pamphlet appears to have met with little success,
and early in 1786 Smith seems to have sold the property to another
bookseller, Kearsley. Kearsley had it enlarged, but not, we are