Ben Jonson produced a skilful amalgamation of the Aulularia and the Captivi in his early play The Case is Altered (written before 1599).
The caverns in the sides of the precipice are said to have afforded Wallace and other heroes (or outlaws) refuge in time of trouble, but the old house is most memorable as the home of the poet William Drummond, who here welcomed Ben Jonson; the tree beneath which the two poets sat still stands.
The early years of Stuart London may be said to be closely linked with the last years of Elizabethan London, for the greatest men, such as Raleigh, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, lived on into James's reign.
Ben Jonson places one of the scenes of Every Man in his Humour in Moorfields, which at the time he wrote the play had, as stated above, lately been drained and laid out in walks.
At the Mermaid Ben Jonson had such companions as Shakespeare, Raleigh, Beaumont, Fletcher, Carew, Donne, Cotton and Selden, but at the Devil in Fleet Street, where he started the Apollo Club, he was omnipotent.
