than fail, to the devil himself. _Flectere
si nequeunt superos, Acheronta movebunt_. And by those indirect means many
a man is overcome, and precipitated into this malady, if he take not good
heed. For these bawds, first, they are everywhere so common, and so many,
that, as he said of old [5204]Croton, _omnes hic aut captantur, aut
captant_, either inveigle or be inveigled, we may say of most of our
cities, there be so many professed, cunning bawds in them. Besides, bawdry
is become an art, or a liberal science, as Lucian calls it; and there be
such tricks and subtleties, so many nurses, old women, panders, letter
carriers, beggars, physicians, friars, confessors, employed about it, that
_nullus tradere stilus sufficiat_, one saith,

[5205] ------"trecentis versibus
Suas impuritias traloqui nemo potest."

Such occult notes, stenography, polygraphy, _Nuntius animatus_, or
magnetical telling of their minds, which [5206]Cabeus the Jesuit, by the
way, counts fabulous and false; cunning conveyances in this kind, that
neither Juno's jealousy, nor Danae's custody, nor Argo's vigilancy can keep
them safe. 'Tis the last and common refuge to use an assistant, such as
that Catanean Philippa was to Joan Queen of Naples, a [5207]bawd's help, an
old woman in the business, as [5208]Myrrha did when she doted on Cyniras,
and could not compass her desire, the old jade her nurse was ready at a
pinch, _dic inquit, opemque me sine ferre tibi--et in hac mea (pone
timorem) Sedulitas erit apta libi_, fear it not, if it be possible to be
done, I will effect it: _non est mulieri mulier insuperabilis_,
[5209]Caelestina said, let him or her be never so honest, watched and
reserved, 'tis hard but one of these old women will get access: and scarce
shall you find, as [5210]Austin observes, in a nunnery a maid alone, "if
she cannot have egress, before her window you shall have an old woman, or
some prating gossip, tell her some tales of this clerk, and that monk,
describing or commending some young gentleman or other unto her." "As I was
walking in the street" (saith a good fellow in Petronius) "to see the town
served one evening, [5211]I spied an old woman in a corner selling of
cabbages and roots" (as our hucksters do plums, apples, and such like
fruits); "mother" (quoth he) "can you tell where I can dwell? she, being
well pleased with my foolish urbanity, replied, and why, sir, should I not
tell? With that she rose up and went before me.