And here the Poem was originally intended to conclude, before the happy idea of the hoary-headed Swain, &c. suggested itself to him. 23. _Ev’n in our ashes live their wonted fires._ Ch’i veggio nel pensier, dolce mio fuoco, Fredda una lingua, et due begli occhi chiusi Rimaner doppo noi pien di faville. _Petrarch_, Son. 169. 25. In the M.S. copy of the Elegy bequeathed by Gray to his friend Mason which is now in the possession of Sir William Fraser, Bart., the last two lines of this stanza read:―― With hasty footsteps brush the dews away On the high brow of yonder hanging lawn. After this stanza in the same manuscript there was the following:―― Him have we seen the greenwood side along, While o’er the heath we hied, our labour’s done, Oft as the woodlark pip’d her farewell song, With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun. “I rather wonder (says Mr. Mason) that he rejected this stanza, as it completes the account of his whole day; whereas, this Evening scene being omitted, we have only his Morning walk, and his Noontide repose.” 29. Before the Epitaph, Mr. Gray originally inserted a very beautiful stanza, which was printed in some of the first editions, but afterwards omitted, because he thought that it was too long a parenthesis in this place. The lines however are, in themselves, exquisitely fine, and demand preservation. There scatter’d oft, the earliest of the Year, By Hands unseen are show’rs of Violets found; The Redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little Footsteps lightly print the ground. To some readers they may appear to be an imitation of the following in Collins’s “Dirge in Cymbeline:” “The female fays shall haunt the green, “And dress thy grave with pearly dew; “The redbreast oft, at evening hours, “Shall kindly lend his little aid, “With hoary moss and gather’d flow’rs, “To deck the ground where thou art laid.” _THE EPITAPH._ _Here rests his Head upon the Lap of Earth A Youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown: Fair Science frown’d not on his humble Birth, And Melancholy mark’d him for her own._ _Large was his Bounty, and his Soul sincere, Heav’n did a Recompence as largely send: He gave to Mis’ry all he had, a Tear: He gain’d from Heav’n (’twas all he wish’d) a Friend. No farther seek his Merits to disclose, Or draw his Frailties from their dread Abode, (There they alike in trembling Hope repose,) The Bosom of his Father and his God._ FINIS. ――――:o:――――