Pennyboy junior replies—
"Content, i' th' faith;
Our meal shall be brought thither; Simon the King
Will bid us welcome."
At what period Ben Jonson began to frequent this tavern is not certain; but we have his record that he wrote The Devil is an Asse, played in 1616, when he and his boys (adopted sons) "drank bad wine at the Devil." The principal room was called "the Oracle of Apollo," a large room evidently built apart from the tavern; and from Prior's and Charles Montagu's Hind and Panther Transversed, it is shown to have been an upper apartment, or on the first story:—
"Hence to the Devil—
Thus to the place where Jonson sat, we climb,
Leaning on the same rail that guided him."
Above the door was the bust of Apollo; and the following verses, "the Welcome," were inscribed in gold letters upon a black board, and "placed over the door at the entrance into the Apollo:
"Welcome all, who lead or follow,