The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen | Page 8

his spray-beaten castle on the Pentland Firth, and
there is a tradition, among members of the family, of Sir John's
unfailing appreciation of the wide intelligence and facetious humour of
Raspe's conversation. Sinclair had some years previously discovered a
small vein of yellow mundick on the moor of Skinnet, four miles from
Thurso. The Cornish miners he consulted told him that the mundick
was itself of no value, but a good sign of the proximity of other
valuable minerals. Mundick, said they, was a good horseman, and
always rode on a good load. He now employed Raspe to examine the
ground, not designing to mine it himself, but to let it out to other
capitalists in return for a royalty, should the investigation justify his
hopes. The necessary funds were put at Raspe's disposal, and masses of
bright, heavy material were brought to Thurso Castle as a foretaste of
what was coming. But when the time came for the fruition of this
golden promise, Raspe disappeared, and subsequent inquiries revealed
the deplorable fact that these opulent ores had been carefully imported
by the mining expert from Cornwall, and planted in the places where
they were found. Sir Walter Scott must have had the incident (though
not Raspe) in his mind when he created the Dousterswivel of his
"Antiquary." As for Raspe, he betook himself to a remote part of the
United Kingdom, and had commenced some mining operations in
country Donegal, when he was carried off by scarlet fever at Muckross
in 1794. Such in brief outline was the career of Rudolph Erich Raspe,
scholar, swindler, and undoubted creator of Baron Munchausen.
The merit of Munchausen, as the adult reader will readily perceive,
does not reside in its literary style, for Raspe is no exception to the rule
that a man never has a style worthy of the name in a language that he
did not prattle in. But it is equally obvious that the real and original
Munchausen, as Raspe conceived and doubtless intended at one time to
develop him, was a delightful personage whom it would be the height
of absurdity to designate a mere liar. Unfortunately the task was taken
out of his hand and a good character spoiled, like many another, by
mere sequel-mongers. Raspe was an impudent scoundrel, and
fortunately so; his impudence relieves us of any difficulty in resolving
the question,--to whom (if any one) did he owe the original conception
of the character whose fame is now so universal.
When Raspe was resident in Göttingen he obtained, in all probability

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, 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