Et sonitu terrebis aves.
Scare with a shout the birds.
[93] Nor thou on others’ heaps a gazer be.] Virgil, Georg. i. 158:
On others’ crops you may with envy look,
And shake for food the long-abandon’d oak.
Dryden.
[94] And few shall pass thee then with honouring eye.] The Psalmist alludes to a blessing given by the passers-by at harvest: while comparing the wicked to grass withering on the house-top: “Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom: neither do they which go by say, “The blessing of the Lord be upon you.” Psalm cxxix. 7, 8.
[95] The brazier’s forge.] Θακος was properly a seat or bench: and λεσχη, conversation, chit-chat—but they came to be applied to the places where loungers sat and talked: hence the former meant a shop, and the latter a portico, piazza, or public exchange, whither idlers of all kinds resorted. It should seem from Homer that beggars took up their night’s lodging in such places: Odyssey xvii. Melantho, taking Ulysses for a mendicant, says to him,
Thou wilt not seek for rest some brazier’s forge,
Or portico.