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As a military sport or exercise, the use of the quintain is very ancient, and may be traced even among the Romans. It is mentioned in Justinian's Code, Lib. III, tit. 43; and its most probable etymology is from "Quintus," the name of its inventor. In the days of chivalry it was the substitute or rehearsal of tilts and tournaments, and was at length adopted, though in a ruder way, by the common people, becoming amongst them a very favourite amusement. Many instances occur of its use in several parts of France, particularly as a seignorial right exacted from millers, watermen, new-married men, and others; when the party was obliged, under some penalty, to run at the quintain upon Whitsunday and other particular times, at the lord's castle, for his diversion. Sometimes it was practised upon the water, and then the quintain was either placed in a boat, or erected in the middle of the river. Something of this kind is described from Fitzstephen by Stowe in his Survey, p. 143, edit. 1618, 4to. and still continues to be practised upon the Seine at Paris. Froissart mentions, that the shield quintain was used in Ireland in the reign of Richard II. In Wales it is still practised at weddings, and at the village of Off ham, near Town Malling in Kent, there is now standing a quintain, resembling that described by Stowe, opposite the dwelling-house of a family that is obliged under some tenure to support it; but I do not find that any use has been ever made of it within the recollection of the inhabitants.

Shakspeare then has most probably alluded to that sort of quintain which resembled the human figure; and if this be the case, the speech of Orlando may be thus explained: "I am unable to thank you; for, surprized and subdued by love, my intellectual powers, which are my better parts, fail me; and I resemble the quintain, whose human or active part being thrown down, there remains nothing but the lifeless trunk or block which once upheld it."

Or, if better parts do not refer to the quintain, "that which here stands up" means the human part of the quintain, which may be also not unaptly called a lifeless block. Douce.

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.

02

PERSONS REPRESENTED.1

King of France.

Duke of Florence.

Bertram, count of Rousillon.

Lafeu,2 an old lord.

Parolles,3 a follower of Bertram.

Several young French lords, that serve with Bertram in the Florentine war.

Steward,} servants to the countess of Rousillon.

A page.

Countess of Rousillon mother to Bertram.
Helena, a gentlewoman protected by the countess.
An old widow of Florence.

Diana, daughter to the widow.

Violenta,

Mariana, neighbours and friends to the widow.

}neighbours

Lords, attending on the king; officers, soldiers, &c. French and Florentine.

SCENE,

Partly in France, and partly in Tuscany.

1 The persons were first enumerated by Mr. Rowe. 2 Lafeu,] We should read-Lefeu. Steevens. 3 Parolles,] I suppose we should write this namei. e. a creature made up of empty words. Steevens.

-Paroles,

4 Violenta only enters once, and then she neither speaks, nor is spoken to. This name appears to be borrowed from an old metrical history, entitled Didaco and Violenta, 1576. Steevens.

ALL 'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL.*

ACT I.....SCENE I.

Rousillon. A Room in the Countess's Palace.

Enter BERTRAM, the Countess of Rousillon, HELENA, and LAFEU, in mourning.

Count. In delivering my son from me, I bury a second husband.

Ber. And I, in going, madam, weep o'er my father's death anew: but I must attend his majesty's command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.

1

Laf. You shall find of the king a husband, madam ;— you, sir, a father: He that so generally is at all times good, must of necessity hold his virtue to you; whose

* The story of All's well that ends well, or, as I suppose it to have been sometimes called, Love's Labour Wonne, is originally indeed the property of Boccace, but it came immediately to Shakspeare from Painter's Giletta of Narbon, in the First Vol. of The Palace of Pleasure, 4to. 1566, p. 88. Farmer.

Shakspeare is indebted to the novel only for a few leading circumstances in the graver parts of the piece. The comic business appears to be entirely of his own formation. Steevens.

1

in ward,] Under his particular care, as my guardian, till I come to age. It is now almost forgotten in England, that the heirs of great fortunes were the King's wards. Whether the same practice prevailed in France, it is of no great use to inquire, for Shakspeare gives to all nations the manners of England.

Johnson.

Howell's fifteenth letter acquaints us that the province of Normandy was subject to wardships, and no other part of France besides; but the supposition of the contrary furnished Shakspeare with a reason why the King compelled Rousillon to marry Helen.

Tollet.

The prerogative of a wardship is a branch of the feudal law, and may as well be supposed to be incorporated with the constitution of France, as it was with that of England, till the reign of Charles 11. Sir F. Hawkins.

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