"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;
···
IN THE STOCKS, BY NESBIT.
We are enabled, by the kindness of Mr. Austin Dobson, author of "Thomas Bewick and his[190] Pupils," to reproduce from that work a picture of the stocks, engraved by Charlton Nesbit for Butler's "Hudibras," 1811.