and immediately adds (l. 72),—
“These growing feathers pluck’d from Cæsar’s wing
Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,
Who else would soar above the view of men
And keep us all in servile fearfulness.”
But more forcibly is the spirit of the fable expressed, when of Timon of Athens (act ii. sc. 1, l. 28, vol. vii. p. 228) a Senator, who was one of his importunate creditors, declares,—
“I do fear,
When every feather sticks in his own wing,
Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,
Which flashes now a phœnix.”