_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.