Perhaps our county magistrates sought his inspiration when they met at the “New Inn” for public business. Amongst the many illustrious visitors who have been lodged there, none ever excited more curiosity than that great potentate, Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Tuscany, who came with an imposing retinue, on his way to London, in the spring of 1669. The Mayor and Alderman waited on him in full state, and were received in a saloon above stairs, perhaps the one that was afterwards converted into the Apollo Room. His highness graciously desired the Mayor to be covered, listened patiently to the inevitable speech or address, accepted the gift of money (£20), which it was then customary to present to great personages, but politely declined his worship’s invitation to a banquet. The Grand Duke afterwards received Sir John Rolle and his two sons, John and Denys, and on the next day returned the visit at their house in the Close, formerly the town mansion of the Abbot of Buckfast, and now occupied as a school by Mrs. Hellins. The fortunes of the “New Inn” began to decline when the Cloth Fair was removed to St. John’s Hospital in 1778, and its decay was probably hastened by the rivalry of the “London Inn,” now the “Bude Haven Hotel.” In his _Grand Gazetteer_, published a little before this time, Andrew Brice describes the “New Inn” as “not undeserving mention, not only as having most or all the Properties of an Inn super-excellent, but especially for one most magnificent lofty and large room, called the Apollo; the Fellow of which scarce any Inn in the Kingdom can truly boast. It’s the property of the Chamber. Herein is kept the present Cloth Hall, and at Whitsuntide fairs the whole Court and nearly every Room are filled with Clothiers and their wares. It may casually be acceptable to some or other of the worthy Fraternity to note also that the said Apollo is the only constituted Lodge of Exeter Freemasons.” When the testy but clever author of this description ended his long life in 1773, two hundred of his brother Freemasons, members of several lodges, met in full costume at the Apollo Room, and joined the funeral procession to St. Bartholomew’s Yard, singing as they went a solemn Masonic elegy composed for the occasion. It was probably not long after this event that the premises ceased to be used as an inn; but the judges of assize continued to be lodged there until about the year 1836, when they removed to Northernhay Place. In a large upper room, in the rear of the “New Inn” premises, the first popular Literary Society in Exeter held its meetings from the year 1830. It was founded five years earlier in some rooms in South Street, under the title of a Mechanics’ Institute. Soon after the termination of its brief but useful existence, its place was supplied by the still flourishing Exeter Literary Society.