of Munchausen was guilty of a grave omission. He may, however, have regarded Trenck's adventures less as material for ridicule than as a series of hâbleries which threatened to rival his own.
The Seventh Edition, published in 1793, with the supplement (pp. 142–161), was, with the abominable proclivity to edification which marked the publisher of the period (that of "Goody Two-Shoes" and "Sandford and Merton"), styled 'Gulliver Reviv'd: or the Vice of Lying Properly Exposed." The previous year had witnessed the first appearance of the sequel, of which the full title has already been given, "with twenty capital copper-plates, including the baron's portrait." The merit of Munchausen as a mouthpiece for ridiculing traveller's tall-talk, or indeed anything that shocked the incredulity of the age, was by this time widely recognised. And hence with some little ingenuity the popular character was pressed into the service of the vulgar clamour against James Bruce, whose "Travels to Discover the Sources of the Nile" had appeared in 1790. In particular Bruce's description of the Abyssinian custom of feeding upon "live bulls and kava" provoked a chorus of incredulity. The traveller was ridiculed upon the stage as Macfable, and in a cloud of ephemeral
