prince of liars and chief of swindlers, accompanied by his servant, Karl Buttervogel, the Sancho Panza of the story, comes to the castle.  His presence enlivens; his interminable stories, through which Immermann satirizes the tendencies of the time, delight at first, then tire, then become intolerable.  To maintain his influence, he suggests to the old Baron the establishment of a stock company for the selling of compressed air, assuring this gullible old soul that hereby his fortunes can be retrieved and his appointment as Privy Councilor can be realized.  The Baron, though pleased, enters into the proposition with caution.  But Muenchhausen, unable to execute his scheme, finds himself in an embarrassing dilemma from which he disentangles himself by mysteriously disappearing and never again coming to light.  Emerentia has in the meantime fallen in love with Karl Buttervogel, whom she erroneously looks upon as a Prince in disguise.  At the prospect of so humble a son-in-law, the Baron becomes frantic, violently removes Buttervogel from the castle, which, as a result of the Baron’s ravings, falls to the ground with a crash and a roar—­a catastrophe which reminds one of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher—­and the Baron and Agesel are restored to their senses.

The chief trouble with this fantastic story is that it lacks artistic measure and objective plausibility.  Immermann, omnivorous reader that he was, wrote this part of his book, not from life, but from other books.  And even granting that he carried out his plan with a reasonable degree of cleverness, the average reader is not sufficiently acquainted with Kerner and Platen and their long line of queer contemporaries to see the point, so he skips over this part of the work and turns at once to Der Oberhof.

It is needless to state that Immermann never wrote a work with such a title.  Editors and publishers have simply followed the lead of readers and brought out separately the best parts of the complete novel under the heading of the third chapter of the second book.  There is not even final agreement as to how much of the original work should be included in order to make a well-rounded story.  The editions, of which there are many, vary in size from seventy-five to three hundred and seventy-five octavo pages.  The best arrangement is that which includes the second, fifth, seventh and eighth books.

Here again we meet with three leading characters—­the very honest and reliable Hofschulze, the owner of the “Upper Farm,” in whom are personified and glorified the best traditions of Westphalia; Lisbeth, the daughter of Muenchhausen and Emerentia, the connecting link between romantic and realistic Germany; and Oswald, the Suabian Count disguised as a hunter, a thoroughly good fellow.  But this by no means exhausts the list of pleasing personalities.  The good Deacon, who had lost interest in life and faith in men while tutoring a young Swedish Count, and who was made over