W. D.
Chaucer and Gray (Vol. iii., p. 492).
—MR. THOMS suggests a very interesting parallel between a line in Chaucer, and Gray's "Even in our ashes", &c. Gray himself refers to Petrarch as his original, and the thought occurs in Shakspeare:
"In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie."
And Malone, in a note on the passage (Supplement to Shakspeare, 1780, vol. i. p. 640), adduces the passage in Chaucer quoted by MR. THOMS as an illustration. Steevens has mentioned the following passage in Sir P. Sidney's Arcadia "In ashes of despair, though burnt, shall make thee live." Compare, also, Antony and Cleopatra, Act V. Sc. 2.
J. O. H.
To the verse,
"Even in our ashes live their wonted fires,"
Gray has himself appended a note, indicating that it was suggested by Petrarch, sonnet 169.; and "I will take the poet's word for a thousand pounds." It was originally written—