Shakespeare makes frequent reference to this punishment and always in such manner as to demonstrate that he was thoroughly familiar with the nature and object of the procedure governing the infliction of the penalty upon those who obstinately stood mute, when called upon to plead to indictments for felonies. Thus, in “Much Ado About Nothing” he makes Hero say to Ursula, when speaking of Beatrice, in the Orchard of Leonato:[40] “_Hero._ No, not to be so odd and from all fashions As Beatrice is, cannot be commendable; But who dare tell her so? If I should speak, She would mock me into air; O, she would laugh me Out of myself, press me to death with wit.”[41] In “Measure for Measure,” when the Duke adjudged that Lucio should marry the woman he had wronged, the latter replied: “_Lucio._ Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping and hanging.”[42] In Richard II., on overhearing the talk of the Gardener and servant, in the Duke of York’s garden, concerning the King, the Queen soliloquizes “_Queen._ O, I am pressed to death through want of speaking,”[43] as if she were really in the dock and actually conditioned so that she would suffer the customary penalty for standing mute. Pandarus also refers to the _peine forte et dure_, in Troilus and Cressida, in advising them to “press” the bed to death because it stands mute as to their “pretty encounters” thereon: “_Pan._ ... I will show you a chamber and a bed, Which bed, because it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, Press it to death: away.”[44] By a study of the old cases, decided when the _peine forte et dure_ obtained, the development of the law on this subject, can best be understood, for like landmarks, pointing the devious course of the tortuous procedure that obtained for centuries, before the evolution of the science, to the point where it was able to preserve the just rights of the individual, consistently with the demands of society, the later cases evidence the gradual decline of the old, harsh punishment for standing mute, and thus, with the abolition of this quandam formal procedure, that was considered such a material part of the old criminal law of England, the law itself has reached a higher plane, from which we can look down upon the crudities and cruelties of the old system, with pity for the multitudes who were subjected to its harsh rules and false standards. And judging the future by the past, we can indulge the hope that many of our own formal procedures will be amended and abolished, to the end that unjust results and delays may be minimized and the attainment of just ideals promoted.