The merchant had his Exchange; the citizen his tavern; the gallant had the apothecary’s shop, where he bought and smoked his tobacco. For daily discourse and business the scholar, the divine, the poet, the wit, had the bookseller’s shop. “He will sit you,” said Ben Jonson, “a whole afternoon in a bookseller’s shop, reading the Greek, Italian, and Spanish.” He would read, and he would talk. Remember that in the year 1590 or thereabouts the art of printing had only been in use a hundred years; all the books were new books; every poet was printed or translated for the first time; the booksellers’ shops contained editions, always new, of ancient classics; of living poets; of foreign writers; there was far greater interest in a new book than our age can understand: as we have seen there were in London alone at least 240 poets, known and acknowledged, whose names are still remembered, and whose poems still remain Anthologies, and there was interest among the reading world in every one of them. There may have been jealousies: poets have always been a jealous folk; but there was appreciation, and there was generosity. And the bookseller’s shop was the place where all who valued new books could meet and talk of books—what talk is more delightful? What criticism more sincere than that between those who themselves belong to letters in an age when literature knows not yet the meaning of the words exhaustion or decay? Mr. Ordish (_Shakespeare’s London_, p. 233) has compiled a list of Elizabethan booksellers from the title-pages of the Shakespeare quartos. Such a list was well worth making, though it cannot be considered more than a small instalment. Indeed, the literary output was so enormous during the latter half of the sixteenth century, that the number of booksellers must have been proportionately greater than at present. The following were some of the signs:— I. In St. Paul’s Churchyard— At the sign of the Angel, the Fox, the Flower de Luce and the Crown, the Greyhound, the Green Dragon, the Holy Ghost, the Gun (Edward White), the Pied Bull, the Spread Eagle. II. By St. Dunstan’s in the West— At the sign of the White Hart; at the shop under the Dial. III. In Paternoster Row— At the sign of the Sun. IV. Cornhill— At the sign of the Cat and Parrots. V. In Carter Lane, near the Paul Head. Plays and masques were performed on Sunday as well as any other day; the feeling, however, was growing rapidly in favour of a stricter attention to the Sunday, which was confused with the Sabbath. In other words, the Puritans were fast increasing in numbers and in importance.