We gather from an Act passed during the reign of Edward III., in the year 1351, and known as the Second Statute of Labourers, that if artificers were unruly they were liable to be placed in the stocks. Some years later, namely, in 1376, the Commons prayed that the stocks might be established in every village. In 1405, an Act was passed for every town and village to be provided with a pair of stocks, so that a place which had not this instrument of punishment and detention was regarded as a hamlet. No village was considered to be complete, or even worthy of the name of village, without its stocks, so essential to due order and government were they deemed to be. A Shropshire historian, speaking of a hamlet called Hulston, in the township of Middle, in order, apparently, to prove that in calling the place a hamlet and not a village he was speaking correctly, remarks in proof of his assertion, that Hulston did not then, or ever before, possess a constable, a pound, or stocks.[36] Wynkyn de Worde, who, in company with Richard Pynsent, succeeded to Caxton's printing business, in the year 1491, issued from his press the play of "Hick Scorner," and in one of the scenes the stocks are introduced. The works of Shakespeare include numerous allusions to this subject. Launce, in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (IV. 4), says: "I have sat in the stocks for puddings he hath stolen." In "All's Well that Ends Well" (IV. 3), Bertram says: "Come, bring forth this counterfeit module has deceived me, like a double-meaning prophesier." Whereupon one of the French lords adds: "Bring him forth; has sat i' stocks all night, poor gallant knave." Volumnia says of Coriolanus (V. 3): "There's no man in the world More bound to's mother; yet here let me prate Like one i' the stocks." Again, in the "Comedy of Errors" (III. 1), Luce speaks of "a pair of stocks in the town," and in "King Lear" (II. 2), Cornwall, referring to Kent, says: "Fetch forth the stocks! You stubborn ancient knave." It would seem that formerly, in great houses, as in some colleges, there were movable stocks for the correction of the servants.[37] In Butler's "Hudibras" are allusions to the stocks. Says the poet: "An old dull sot, who toll'd the clock For many years at Bridewell-dock; . . . Engaged the constable to seize All those that would not break the peace; Let out the stocks and whipping-post, And cage, to those that gave him most." We are enabled, by the kindness of Mr. Austin Dobson, author of "Thomas Bewick and his Pupils," to reproduce from that work a picture of the stocks, engraved by Charlton Nesbit for Butler's "Hudibras," 1811. [Illustration: IN THE STOCKS, BY NESBIT.]