"_Careless._ I am full Of Oracles. I am come from Apollo.
_Careless._ From the heaven Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god Drinks sack, and keeps his bacchanalia, And has his incense and his altars smoaking, And speaks in sparkling prophecies; thence I come, My brains perfumed with the rich Indian vapour, And heightened with conceits. From tempting beauties, From dainty music and poetic strains, From bowls of nectar and ambrosial dishes, From witty varlets, fine companions, And from a mighty continent of pleasure, Sails thy brave Careless."
Randolph was by Ben Jonson, adopted for his son, and that upon the following occasion. "Mr. Randolph having been at London so long as that he might truly have had a parley with his _Empty Purse_, was resolved to see Ben Jonson, with his associates, which, as he heard, at a set time kept a Club together at the Devil Tavern, neere Temple Bar: accordingly, at the time appointed, he went thither, but being unknown to them, and wanting money, which to an ingenious spirit is the most daunting thing in the world, he peeped in the room where they were, which being espied by Ben Jonson, and seeing him in a scholar's threadbare habit, 'John Bo-peep,' says he, 'come in,' which accordingly he did; when immediately they began to rhyme upon the meanness of his clothes, asking him if he could not make a verse? and without to call for a quart of sack: there being four of them, he immediately thus replied,
"I, John Bo-peep, to you four sheep,-- With each one his good fleece; If that you are willing to give me five shilling, 'Tis fifteen-pence a-piece."
"By Jesus!" quoth Ben Jonson (his usual oath), "I believe this is my son Randolph;" which being made known to them, he was kindly entertained into their company, and Ben Jonson ever after called him son. He wrote _The Muses' Looking-glass_, _Cambridge Duns_, _Parley with his Empty Purse_, and other poems.
We shall have more to say of the Devil Tavern, which has other celebrities besides Jonson.
Our Clubs, or social gatherings, which date from the Restoration, were exclusively political. The first we hear of was the noted Rota, or Coffee Club, as Pepys calls it, which was founded in 1659, as a kind of debating society for the dissemination of republican opinions, which Harrington had painted in their fairest colours in his _Oceana_. It met in New Palace Yard, "where they take water at one Miles's, the next house to the staires, where was made purposely a large ovall table, with a passage in the middle for Miles to deliver his coffee." Here Harrington gave nightly lectures on the advantage of a commonwealth and of the ballot. The Club derived its name from a plan, which it was its design to promote, for changing a certain number of Members of Parliament annually by _rotation_. Sir William Petty was one of its members. Round the table, "in a room every evening as full as it could be crammed," says Aubrey, sat Milton and Marvell, Cyriac Skinner, Harrington, Nevill, and their friends, discussing abstract political questions. Aubrey calls them "disciples and virtuosi." The place had its dissensions and brawls: "one time Mr. Stafford and his friends came in drunk from the tavern, and affronted the Junto; the soldiers offered to kick them down stayres, but Mr. Harrington's moderation and persuasion hindered it."