And painted faces flock in tally'd clothes."
Dramatists and poets resorted to the house, and about 1726, Gay and other wits, by clubbing verses, concocted the well-known love ditty, entitled Molly Mogg of the Rose, in compliment to the then barmaid or waitress. The Welsh ballad, Gwinfrid Shones, printed in 1733, has also this tribute to Molly Mogg, as a celebrated toast:
"Some sing Molly Mogg of the Rose,
And call her the Oakingham pelle;
Whilst others does farces compose,
On peautiful Molle Lepelle."
Hogarth's third print of the Rake's Progress, published in 1735, exhibits a principal room in the Rose Tavern: Lethercoat, the fellow with a bright pewter dish and a candle, is a portrait; he was for many years a porter attached to the house.
Garrick, when he enlarged Drury-lane Theatre, in 1776, raised the new front designed by Robert Adam, took in the whole of the tavern, as a convenience to the theatre, and retained the sign of the Rose in an oval compartment, as a conspicuous part of the decoration, which is shown in a popular engraving by J. T. Smith.
In D'Urfey's Songs, 1719, we find these allusions to the Rose: