it module, has deceived me, like a
double-meaning prophesier." Whereupon one of the French lords adds:
"Bring him forth: has sat i' the 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 he lets 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. Putting a person
in the stocks, too, was an exhibition familiar to the ancient stage. In
"Hick Scorner,"[851] printed in the reign of Henry VIII., Pity is placed
in the stocks, and left there until he is freed "by Perseverance and
Contemplacyon."

[851] It is reprinted in Hawkins's "English Drama," 1773.

_Strappado._ This was a military punishment, by which the unfortunate
sufferer was cruelly tortured in the following way: a rope being
fastened under his arms, he was drawn up by a pulley to the top of a
high beam, and then suddenly let down with a jerk. The result usually
was a dislocation of the shoulder-blade. In "1 Henry IV." (ii. 4), it is
referred to by Falstaff, who tells Poins: "were I at the strappado, or
all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion." At
Paris, says Douce,[852] "there was a spot called _l'estrapade_, in the
Faubourg St. Jacques, where soldiers received this punishment. The
machine, whence the place took its name, remained fixed like a perpetual
gallows." The term is probably derived from the Italian _strappare_, to
pull or draw with violence.

[852] "Illustrations of Shakespeare," pp. 263. 264; see Dyce's
"Glossary," p. 423.

_Toss in a Sieve._ This punishment, according to Cotgrave, was inflicted
"on such as committed gross absurdities." In "1 Henry VI." (i. 3),
Gloster says to the Bishop of Winchester:

"I'll canvass thee in thy broad cardinal's hat,
If thou proceed in this thy insolence."

It is alluded to in Davenant's "Cruel Brother" (1630):

"I'll sift and winow him in an old hat."

_Wheel._ The punishment of the wheel was not known at Rome, but we read
of Mettius Tuffetius being torn asunder by _quadrigae_ driven in opposite
direc