human
London and the Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters, published in 1632, says of the Exchange:--
gpt
Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city.
human
I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London, says Evelyn, writing from Amsterdam in 1641;
gpt
He writes from Paris in the same strain:
human
I went to the Exchange; the late addition to the buildings is very noble; but the gallerys, where they sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London, no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low vault. Even the associations which the Rialto must have awakened failed to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from Venice, in June, 1645:
gpt
I went to their Exchange--a place like ours, frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent.
human
Exit tyrannorum ultimus,