Chapter XCV: Act II: SCENE 3. Page 540

2 CIT. Ill news by'r lady; _seldom comes the better_.

Well might the author of the book quoted by Mr. Reed say "that proverb indeed is auncient," as will appear from the following curious account of its origin extracted from a manuscript collection of stories compiled about the time of king Henry the Third:--

"Quidam abbas dedit monachis suis tria fercula. Dixerunt monachi, Iste parum dat nobis. Rogemus Deum ut cito moriatur. Et sive ex hac causa, sive ex alia, mortuus est. Substitutus est alius, qui eis tamen dedit duo fercula. Irati monachi contristati dixerunt, Nunc magis est orandum, quia unum ferculum subtractum est, Deus subtrahat ei vitam suam. Tandem mortuus est. Substitutus est tertius, qui duo fercula subtraxit. Irati monachi dixerunt, Iste pessimus est inter omnes, quia fame nos interficit; rogemus Deum quod cito moriatur. Dixit unus monachus, Rogo Deum quod det ei vitam longam, et manu teneat eum nobis. Alii admirati querebant quare hoc diceret; qui ait, Vide quod primus fuit malus, secundus pejor, iste pessimus; timeo quod cum mortuus fuerit alius pejor succedet, qui penitus nos fame perimet. Unde solet dici, _Seilde comed se betere_."

SCENE 4. Page 546.

Q. ELIZ. A _parlous_ boy.

"Parlous," says Mr. Steevens, "is keen, shrewd." Mr. Ritson is of a different opinion, and thinks it a corruption of _perilous_, dangerous. Both parties are right; but it is probably used here as _perilous_, in like manner as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_ talks of "a _parlous_ knock," and as it is also to be taken in _A midsummer night's dream_, where Mr. Steevens had properly explained it; and the instance which he has given on the present occasion does, in fact, corroborate his former note. _Parlous_ is likewise made synonymous with _shrewd_ by Littelton. See his Latin dict. v. _importunus_. In Middleton's play of _The changeling_, we have "a _parlous_ fool," i. e. _shrewd_, "he must sit in the fourth form at least." Yet a few pages further the same word is as clearly used for _perilous_. After all there is little or no difference in the senses of it, for in shrewdness there is certainly peril. He that meets with a _shrew_, may well be said to be _in danger_. Some might think that this word is the same as _talkative_, in which case it must have been borrowed from the French; but that language does not furnish an adjective of the kind. The original corruption was _perlious_. Thus in an unpublished work by William of Nassyngton, a poet of the fifteenth century, who wrote on the Lord's prayer, &c., we have, "Methinks this maner is _perlious_."