I. ii. 57. Paul’s. The nave of St. Paul’s Cathedral

was in Shakespeare’s day the business center of Lon¬ don. From eleven to twelve, and three to six, daily, men of all professions and trades congregated there. Men out of work, and masters looking for servants, posted their advertisements on the pillars of the nave. Falstaff is probably referring here to a popular say¬ ing, quoted in The Choice of Change, 1698: ‘A man must not make choice of three things in three places: of a wife in Westminster, of a servant in Paul’s, of a horse in Smithfield; lest he choose a quean, a knave, or a jade.’ Smithfield is the great cattle market of London.