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Title: Paul's Walk
Author: John Earle [
More Titles by Earle]
PAUL'S WALK[1]
Is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages; and were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buzz mixed of walking tongues and feet: it is a kind of still roar or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the parliament. It is the antick of tails to tails, and backs to backs, and for vizards you need go no farther than faces. It is the market of young lecturers, whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is, that it is the thieves sanctuary, which rob more safely in the crowd than a wilderness, whilst every searcher is a bush to hide them. It is the other expence of the day, after plays, tavern, and a bawdy-house; and men have still some oaths left to swear here. It is the ear's brothel, and satisfies their lust and itch. The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are stale knights and captains[2] out of service; men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and traffick for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach; but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board here very cheap.[3] Of all such places it is least haunted with hobgoblins, for if a ghost would walk more, he could not.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] St. Paul's cathedral was, during the reigns of Elizabeth and James, a sort of exchange and public parade, where business was transacted between merchants, and where the fashionables of the day exhibited themselves. The reader will find several allusions to this custom in the variorum edition of Shakspeare, K. Henry IV. part 2. Osborne, in his Traditional Memoires on the Reigns of Elizabeth and James, 12mo. 1658, says, "It was the fashion of those times (James I.) and did so continue till these, (the interregnum,) for the principal gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all professions, not merely mechanicks, to meet in St. Paul's church by eleven, and walk in the middle isle till twelve, and after dinner from three to six; during which time some discoursed of business, others of news." Weever complains of the practice, and says, "it could be wished that walking in the middle isle of Paules might be forborne in the time of diuine seruice." Ancient Funeral Monuments, 1631, page 373.
[2] In the Dramatis Personae to Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, Bobadil is styled a Paul's man; and Falstaff tells us that he bought Bardolph in Paul's. King Henry IV. Part 2.
[3]
----You'd not doe
Like your penurious father, who was wont
To walke his dinner out in Paules.
Mayne's City Match, 1658.
[The end]
John Earle's essay: Paul's Walk
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