There was much that astonished me in this walk through London of the year 1603, but nothing so surprising and unexpected as St. Paul's Cathedral. I had pictured a church narrow, long, somewhat low and dark. I found, on the other hand, that it was in every respect a most noble church, longer than any other cathedral I had ever seen, loftier, also, and well lighted in every part, the style grand and simple. Consider, therefore, my astonishment at finding the church desecrated and abandoned like the common streets for the general uses of the people. The choir alone, where the old screen still stood, was reserved for purposes of worship, for there was a public thoroughfare through the transepts and across the church. Men tramped through, carrying baskets of meat or of bread, sacks of coal, bundles, bags, and parcels of all kinds, walking as in the streets, turning neither to right nor left. Hucksters and peddlers not only walked through, but lingered on their way to sell their wares. Servants stood and sat about a certain pillar to be hired; scriveners sat about another pillar writing letters for those who required their services; clergymen in quest of a curacy or vicarage gathered at another pillar. "Remember the verses," said Stow: "'Who wants a churchman that can service say, Read first and faire his monthlie homilie, And wed and bury and make Christian soules? Come to the left side alley of St. Paul's.' "The poor clergymen," he went on, "have fallen upon evil times; there is not preferment enough for all of them, and many of the country parishes are too poor to keep a man, even though he live more hardly than a yeoman. "This," he added, "is an exchange where almost as much business is done as at Sir Thomas Gresham's Burse, but of another kind. Here are houses bought and sold; here is money lent on usury; here are conspiracies hatched, villanies resolved upon; here is the honor of women bought and sold; here, if a man wants a handful of desperadoes for the Spanish Main, he may buy them cheap--look at those men standing by the tomb that they call Duke Humphrey's." They were three tall, lean fellows, each with a long rapier and a worn doublet and a hungry face. Only to look upon them made one think of John Oxenham and his companions. "These men should be taking of Panama or Guayaquil," said Stow. "The time grows too peaceful for such as those. But see, this is Paul's Walk; this is the Mediterranean." The long middle aisle was crowded with a throng of men walking to and fro, some alone, some two or three together. Some of them were merchants or retailers, some were countrymen looking about them and crying out for the loftiness of the roof and grandeur of the church. But many were young gallants, and those were evidently come to show the splendor of their dress and to mark and follow the newest fashions, which, like women, they learned from each other.