"At the Devyll yf you lust, I can not tell!" Ben Jonson being one night at the Devil Tavern, a country gentleman in the company was obtrusively loquacious touching his land and tenements; Ben, out of patience, exclaimed, "What signifies to us your dirt and your clods? Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit!" "Have you so," retorted the countryman, "good Mr. Wise-acre?" "Why, how now, Ben?" said one of the party, "you seem to be quite stung!" "I was never so pricked by a hobnail before," grumbled Ben. There is a ludicrous reference to this old place in a song describing the visit of James I. to St. Paul's Cathedral on Sunday, 26th of March, 1620: "The Maior layd downe his mace, and cry'd, 'God save your Grace, And keepe our King from all evill!' With all my hart I then wist, the good mace had been in my fist, To ha' pawn'd it for supper at the _Devill_!" We have already given the famous Apollo "Welcome," but not immortal Ben's Rules, which have been thus happily translated by Alexander Brome, one of the wits who frequented the Devil, and who left _Poems and Songs_, 1661: he was an attorney in the Lord Mayor's Court: "_Ben Jonson's Sociable Rules for the Apollo._ "Let none but guests, or clubbers, hither come. Let dunces, fools, sad sordid men keep home. Let learned, civil, merry men, b' invited, And modest too; nor be choice ladies slighted. Let nothing in the treat offend the guests; More for delight than cost, prepare the feast. The cook and purvey'r must our palates know; And none contend who shall sit high or low. Our waiters must quick-sighted be, and dumb, And let the drawers quickly hear and come. Let not our wine be mix'd, but brisk and neat, Or else the drinkers may the vintners beat. And let our only emulation be, Not drinking much, but talking wittily. Let it be voted lawful to stir up Each other with a moderate chirping cup; Let not our company be, or talk too much; On serious things, or sacred, let's not touch With sated heads and bellies. Neither may Fiddlers unask'd obtrude themselves to play. With laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs, And whate'er else to grateful mirth belongs, Let's celebrate our feasts; and let us see That all our jests without reflection be. Insipid poems let no man rehearse, Nor any be compelled to write a verse. All noise of vain disputes must be forborne, And let no lover in a corner mourn. To fight and brawl, like hectors, let none dare, Glasses or windows break, or hangings tear. Whoe'er shall publish what's here done or said From our society must be banishèd; Let none by drinking do or suffer harm, And, while we stay, let us be always warm."