Fallowing, or ploughing the soil while at rest from yielding a crop, prepares it for the growth of seed by pulverizing it, exposing it to the influences of the atmosphere, and destroying the weeds: and is of essential use in recovering land that had been impoverished and exhausted by a succession of the same crops. The practice of fallows seems, however, to be now in a great degree superseded by that of an interchange of other crops in rotation; and the succession of green or leguminous plants alternately with the white crops or grain: the frequent hoeings, in this mode of tillage, cleaning the soil no less effectually than fallowings. [89] _Rich in his own conceit._] The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men who can render a reason. PROVERBS, xxvi. 16. [90] _These let thy timely care provide before._] See Virgil, Georg. i. 167: The sharpen’d share and heavy-timber’d plough: And Ceres’ ponderous waggon rolling slow: And Celeus’ harrows, hurdles, sleds to trail O’er the press’d grain, and Bacchus’ flying sail: These long before provide. WARTON. [91] _Jove subterrene._] Guietus supposes that the husband of Proserpine is invoked from the consanguinity between Pluto, Proserpine, and Ceres. But this is not the only reason. Grævius properly remarks, that the earth, and all under the earth, were subject to Pluto, as the air was to Jupiter: Pluto, therefore, was supposed the giver of those treasures which the earth produces: whether of metals or grain. He was in fact the same with Plutus: and both names are formed from the Greek word πλουτος, _wealth_. [92] _And scare the birds away._] So Virgil, Georg. i. 156: _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.