must he debase himself and yield to all who make their addresses to
him, for fear of appearing hard and ungentle.
It is recorded of Bocchoris, king of Egypt, a man of a very cruel
nature, that the goddess Isis sent a kind of a serpent (called aspis),
which winding itself about his head cast a shadow over him from above,
and was a means to him of determining causes according to equity. But
bashfulness, on the contrary, happening upon remiss and spirit less
tempers, suffers them not to express their dislike of any thing or to
argue against it, but perverts many times the sentence of arbitrators,
and stops the mouths of skilful pleaders, forcing them often to act
and speak contrary to their conviction. And the most reckless man will
always tyrannize and domineer over such a one, forcing his bashfulness
by his own strength of impudence. Upon this account it is that
bashfulness, like a low piece of soft ground, can make no resistance
and decline no encounter but is exposed to the meanest actions and
vilest passions. But, above all, this is the worst guardian of raw and
inexperienced youth. For, as Brutus said, he seems to have had but an
ill education that has not learned to deny any thing. And no better
overseer is it of the marriage-bed or the woman’s apartment; as the
repentant lady in Sophocles accuses the spark that had debauched her,—