Note 64 — XLI.

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.