278 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Museum, I am able to state that where Kirkby's dependence upon an 

 earlier writer is referred to at all — as in the article in the 'Dictionary 

 of National Biography' — the case for plagiarism is not put half strongly 

 enough. Kirkby did not merely borrow hints, ideas, episodes; he stole 

 the entire book, adding, expanding and slightly rearranging in places, 

 but adhering to the plan of his predecessor and sometimes retaining 

 his actual phraseology for paragraphs and pages together. To illustrate 

 these statements would necessitate the reproduction of a number of 

 lengthy passages, and space cannot here be spared for such an under- 

 taking. I have said this much to make clear to any reader of Gibbon's 

 Memoirs, or Scott's fragment of autobiography, why I now disregard 

 Kirkby's work and confine myself to what was evidently its immediate 

 Bource and model.* 



The writer of the 'History of Autonous,' then, opens his narrative 

 by telling us how he became acquainted with that young nobleman, at 

 the University of Eumathema, in the Kingdom of Epinoia. He is 

 invited to take a short pleasure trip with him in his barge up the 

 river. It is on this occasion that Antonous entertains his guest with 

 the story of his life. 



His father, Eugenius, chief of one of the most ancient houses in 

 the kingdom, had married Paramythia, a young lady of 'quality nothing 

 inferior to himself.' About the time of Autonous's birth, a rebellion 

 broke out in Epinoia. It was promptly quashed; but, through 'the 

 underhand Dealing of some ill-designing Persons,' enemies of Eugenius, 

 he was arrested, tried and found guilty of treason. He was, therefore, 

 condemned to banishment and the forfeiture of his estates. 



With his wife, child and a couple of servants, the unfortunate 

 nobleman sets sail for a distant land; the ship goes to pieces in a 

 storm, and all on board perish, except Eugenius, Paramythia and the 

 baby, who are east upon an uninhabited island. The father manages, 

 like Eobinson Crusoe, to save some necessaries and a number of 

 miscellaneous articles from the wreck, and, with these, a little dog, 

 which afterwards plays an important part in the story. 



On examination of the island, it is found that, most fortunately, 

 there are no 'noxious animals' or venomous creatures there, 'but multi- 

 tudes of goats, deer and fowls of every kind,' furnishing abundance 

 of provision. Eugenius hunts with bow and arrow and presently builds 

 a cottage, in a grove of trees and within view of the sea, in the hope, 

 like Enoch Arden, of sooner or later sighting a chance sail. But the 



* 'Autonous' occupies 117 pages; 'Automathes,' 284. The difference is due partly to Kirkby' 

 tendency to amplification, and partly to a long critical introduction containing a good deal of 

 political disquisition, not at all to the point, and incorporating the machinery of a manuscript dis- 

 covered in a cylinder, which adds neither to the clearness nor to the interest of the subsequent 

 narrative. (Of course, as we do not know who wrote 'Autonous' there is the chance that this 

 was a first draft of the later and longer book, by Kirkby himself. But this does not seem likely. ) 



