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 antic 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 and tavern; and men have still some oaths left to swear here.  The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are stale knights and captains[65] out of service; men of long rapiers and breeches, which after all turn merchants here and traffic 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[66].  Of all such places it is least haunted with hobgoblins, for if a ghost would walk more, he could not.

A COOK.

The kitchen is his hell, and he the devil in it, where his meat and he fry together.  His revenues are showered down from the fat of the land, and he interlards his own grease among, to help the drippings.  Choleric he is not by nature so much as his art, and it is a shrewd temptation that the chopping-knife is so near.  His weapons ofter offensive are a mess of hot broth and scalding water, and woe be to him that comes in his way.  In the kitchen he will domineer and rule the roast in spite of his master, and curses in the very dialect of his calling.  His labour is mere blustering and fury, and his speech like that of sailors in a storm, a thousand businesses at once; yet, in all this tumult, he does not love combustion, but will be the first man that shall go and quench it.  He is never a good Christian till a hissing pot of ale has slacked him, like water cast on a firebrand, and for that time he is tame and dispossessed.  His cunning is not small in architecture, for he builds strange fabrics in paste, towers and castles, which are offered to the assault of valiant teeth, and like