, that the snow had so thawed as to leave the
horse on a taut bridle; assuredly he did not kill seventy-three brace of
wildfowl with one shot, but the killing of two brace was a feat noble
enough to be magnified into the slaughter of a flight.

Muenchausen lied, but he lied honestly, that is to himself before all
men. For he was a gentleman, a gentleman of high lineage the like of
whom rode and drove in numbers along the eighteenth century roads. His
own career, or rather that of his historian, Raspe,[8] harmonises with
his personal characteristics, reveals his Teutonic origin, and it
matters little whether he was the German 'Muenchausen' or the Dutch
Westphalian 'Munnikhouson.' The first sentence of his first chapter
tells of his beard; his family pride stares us everywhere in the face;
Muenchausen claims descent from the wife of Uriah (and he might have been
innocent enough to accept Ananias as a forbear), and knows that
_noblesse oblige_, for, says he to the Lady Fragantia when receiving
from her a plume: 'I swear ... that no savage, tyrant, or enemy upon the
face of the earth shall despoil me of this favour, while one drop of the
blood of the Muenchausens doth circulate in my veins!' Quixotic
Muenchausen, it is well that you should, in later adventures, meet and
somewhat humiliate the Spanish Don. For you are a gentleman of no
English and cold-blooded pattern, even though you buy your field-glasses
at Dollonds's and doubtless your clothes at the top of St James's
Street. Too free, too unrestrained to be English you maintain an air of
fashion, you worship at the shrine of any Dulcinea.

[Footnote 8: See Mr Thomas Seccombe's brilliant introduction to the
Lawrence and Bullen edition, 1895.]

Muenchausen has no use for women, save as objects for worship; they must
not serve, or co-operate; for him they are inspiration, beautiful things
before whom he bows, whom he compliments in fulsome wise; he is
preoccupied by woman whenever he is not in the field; he has chivalrous
oaths for others than the Lady Fragantia; he makes the horse mount the
tea-table for the ladies' pleasure; he receives gracefully the proposals
of Catherine of Russia; he is the favourite of the Grand Seignior's
favourite; he is haunted by the Lady Fragantia, who was 'like a summer's
morning, all blushing and full of dew.'

Polite and gallant as any cavalier, Muenchausen carries in him the soul
of a professor; he is minute, he kills no two score beasts