Baron¹ Munchausen has certainly been productive of much benefit to the literary world; the numbers of egregious² travellers have been such, that they demanded a very Gulliver to surpass them. If Baron de Tott dauntlessly discharged an enormous piece of artillery³, the Baron Munchausen has done more; he has taken it and swam with it across the sea. When travellers are solicitous⁴ to be the heroes of their own story, surely they must admit to superiority, and blush at seeing themselves out-done by the renowned⁵ Munchausen: I doubt whether any one hitherto, Pantagruel, Gargantua, Captain Lemuel, or De Tott, has been able to out-do our Baron in this species of excellence⁶: and as at present our curiosity seems much directed to the interior of Africa, it must be edifying⁷ to have the real relation of Munchausen's adventures there before any further intelligence arrives; for he seems to adapt himself and his exploits to the spirit of the times, and recounts what he thinks should be most interesting to his auditors⁸.  
I do not say that the Baron, in the following stories, means a satire⁹ on any political matters whatever. No; but if the reader understands them so, I cannot help it.
 
If the Baron meets with a parcel of negro ships carrying whites into slavery to work upon their plantations¹⁰ in a cold climate, should we therefore imagine that he intends a reflection on the present traffic in human flesh? And that, if the negroes should do so, it would be simple justice, as retaliation¹¹ is the law of God! If we were to think this a reflection on any present commercial or political matter, we should be tempted¹² to imagine, perhaps, some political ideas conveyed in every page, in every sentence of the whole. Whether such things are or are not the intentions of the Baron the reader must judge.
 
We have had not only wonderful travellers in this vile¹³ world, but splenetic travellers, and of these not a few, and also conspicuous¹⁴ enough. It is a pity, therefore, t............