Dorchester.
_"Felix quem faciunt," &c._ (Vol. iii., pp. 373. 431.).--The passage
cited by C. H. P. as assigned to Plautus, and which he says he cannot
find in that author, occurs in one of the interpolated scenes in the
_Mercator_, which are placed in some of the old editions between the 5th
and 6th Scenes of Act IV. In the edition by Pareus, printed at Neustadt
(Neapolis Nemetum) in 1619, 4to., it stands thus:
"Verum id dictum est: Feliciter is sapit, qui periculo alieno
sapit."
I was wrong in attributing it to Plautus, and should rather have called
it _Plautine_. By a strange slip of the pen or the press, pericu_lum_ is
put instead of pericu_lo_ in my note. Niebuhr has a very interesting
essay on the interpolated scenes in Plautus, in the first volume of his
_Kleine Historische und Philologische Schriften_, which will show why
these scenes and passages, marked as supposititious in some editions,
are now omitted. It appears that they were made in the fifteenth century
by Hermolaus Barbarus. See a letter from him to the Bishop of Segni, in
_Angeli Politiani Epistolae_, lib. xii. epist. 25.
To the parallel thoughts already cited may be added the following:
"Ii qui sciunt, quid aliis acciderit, facile ex aliorum eventu,
suis rationibus possunt providere."
_Rhetoric. ad Herennium_, L. 4. c. 9.
"I' presi esempio de' lor stati rei,
Facendomi profitto l' altrui male
In consolar i casi e dolor miei."
Petrarca, _Trionfo della Castita_.
"Ben' e felice quel, donne mie care,
Ch' essere accorto all' altrui spese impare."
Ariosto, _Orl. Fur._, canto X.