A LITERARY COINCIDENCE. 1.1 2 0 T116 EDITOR or TIM SP ROTATOR " ]
chanced a few days ago to come across a copy of an old volume entitled "The Weekly Entertainer," published and printed at Sherborne in 1810. The full title-page, which is very characteristic of the early years of the nineteenth century, is as follows :—" The Weekly Entertainer; or agreeable instructive Repository containing a collection of select pieces both in prose and verse, curious anecdotes, instructive tales, and ingenious essays on different subjects. Printed by J. Langdon, Sherborne. MDCCCX." Among the "select pieces" is the following poem :— " THE CAPTIVE, A SONNET.
A fetter'd slave, a negro chieftain lay, Borne by the oppressor o'er the swelling wave, When memory to his midnight vision gave The realms o'er which he proudly once bore sway: Again, in thought, the sufferer was gay,
Again was happy, generous, and brave:
Once more beheld the stream its green banks lave, Where bless'd with freedom, he was wont to stray. Again he clasp'd a mistress to his breast,
Whilst throng'd his children fondly round his knee:
But ah ! the bliss supreme was scarce possess'd, Ere doom'd, swift as the passing gale, to flee: For soon the oppressor's lash his slumbers broke, Loud clank'd his chains ! In agony he woke."
The similarity of Longfellow's poem," The Slave's Dream," with the above sonnet is at once obvious, and indeed a closer comparison shows the likeness to be so marked and unmis- takable that one cannot but ask oneself whether Longfellow based his poem of 1842 on the crude effort in the obscure "Weekly Entertainer" of 1810. If he did not, is it a case ol coincidence, psychic inspiration, or what ? Perhaps you, Sir, or some of your readers, may be able to throw light on the
[The point raised is interesting, and it raises another. Had Byron read the sonnet of 1810 before he wrote the dying gladiator episode in " Child° Harold" ? If so, the " Weekly Entertainer's" sonnet may have reached Longfellow via Byron. It is possible that all three may have had a common origin,—say in some anti-slave-trade speech or pamphlet.— ED. Spectator.]
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