Page:Cornwallis' Account of Japan.djvu/21

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8.

Cornwallis and Kaempfer is equally true; only, it should be noted that Cornwallis stole from Kaempfer as quoted by Richard Hildreth in Japan as it was and is, and not from Kaempfer directly. Hildreth in 1855 had quoted extensively from Kaempfer, but had been obliged at times to condense what Kaempfer had written. The condensations were re-condensed by Cornwallis, but with obvious retentions of Hildreth's wording.[1] Whenever Hildreth quoted directly from Kaempfer, Cornwallis also changed the wording, so that at times it appears as if he might have used the English translation of Kaempfer's work (1727) instead of Hildreth's compilation. As partly indicated by the reviewer in the British Quarterly Review, the most extensive plagiarism is from the account, first given by Kaempfer, then quoted by Hildreth, of the trip from Osaka to Yedo, which Kaempfer had undertaken twice, in 1691 and 1692, and which he had described minutely in Book V, Chapters ix to xv of his work. Avoiding tedious quotation, I shall only call attention to the description


    pictures in von Siebold (193), Tafeln I, 117, and 133, entitled in Dutch and in German "Burgerdragt. Bürgertracht" and "Bijwijven van den, Nebenweiber des Mikado". Also Cornwallis, I, x, opp. p.275, "Theatricals at Nagasaki," with von Siebold, Tafeln II, 246, "Gemaskerde Dansers Maskemtänzer." Also Cornwallis, II, frontispiece entitled "My Nagasaki friends. Noskotoska & Tazolee" with von Siebold, Tafeln I, 134 and 135, entitled "Sjogun" and "De vrouw, die Gemahlin d. Sjogun."

  1. Cf. Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan . . translated by J. G. Scheuchzer (1906), I, 187-8, Hildreth, op. cit., vi. 68, and Cornwallis, I, xii, 306-7 on the agricultural products of Japan. Other parallels may be adduced.