Note 19 — Chapter III · (continued 2)

These desecrations, notwithstanding Pilkington's denunciation, continued long after, for 60 years later Bishop Earl in his "Micosmography," says:—"Paul's walk is the land's epitome, or you may call it the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatever but is here stirring and afoot.... 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 a few pockets. The best sign of a temple in it is that it is the thieves' sanctuary." The place was the common resort and lounge for idlers and hunters after news, wits and gallants, cheats, usurers and knights of the post; the font itself being used as a counter. It was here that Sir Nicholas Throgmorton held a conference with the emissaries of Wyat; here, too, the bravoes who murdered Arden, of Faversham, were hired; Captain Bobadil was a "Paul's man," and Shakespeare's Falstaff bought Bardolph in Paul's.