It is the office of a just judge to hear both parties, and he that
considers but the one side of things can never make a just judgment,
though he may by chance a true one. Impudence is the bastard of
ignorance, not only unlawfully but incestuously begotten by a man upon
his own understanding, and laid by himself at his own door, a monster of
unnatural production; for shame is as much the propriety of human
nature, though overseen by the philosophers, and perhaps more than
reason, laughing, or looking asquint, by which they distinguish man from
beasts; and the less men have of it the nearer they approach to the
nature of brutes. Modesty is but a noble jealousy of honour, and
impudence the prostitution of it; for he whose face is proof against
infamy must be as little sensible of glory. His forehead, like a
voluntary cuckold's, is by his horns made proof against a blush. Nature
made man barefaced, and civil custom has preserved him so; but he that's
impudent does wear a vizard more ugly and deformed than highway thieves
disguise themselves with. Shame is the tender moral conscience of good
men. When there is a crack in the skull, Nature herself, with a tough
horny callous repairs the breach; so a flawed intellect is with a brawny
callous face supplied. The face is the dial of the mind; and where they
do not go together, 'tis a sign that one or both are out of order. He
that is impudent is like a merchant that trades upon his credit without
a stock, and if his debts were known would break immediately.
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