to be the author of a motion to
His Majesty to stay it: but if you find His Majesty at
fitting leisure, to move him that he will give leave to
think of it in this sort as I have written, it may do well;
and I assure your lordship, unless I find matter of more
consequence than I observe on this sudden, it is not like to
be stayed. And so I rest your lordship's very assured to do
you service,

THO. COVENTRYE, CH.

CANBURY, 12 _August_, 1626.

[Footnote 690: Collier, _op. cit._, I, 443.]

Apparently some very influential person was urging the passage of the
bill. But the scheme soon evoked the bitter opposition of the various
troupes of players, and of the owners of the various theatres and
other places of amusement. An echo of the quarrel is found in
Marmion's _Holland's Leaguer_, II, iii:

Twill dead all my device in making matches,
My plots of architecture, and erecting
New amphitheatres to draw custom
From playhouses once a week, and so pull
A curse upon my head from the poor scoundrels.[691]

[Footnote 691: _The Dramatic Works of Shackerley Marmion_, in
_Dramatists of the Restoration_, p. 37. Fleay (_A Biographical
Chronicle of the English Drama_, II, 66) suggests that the impostors
Agurtes and Autolichus are meant to satirize Williams and Dixon
respectively.]

The "poor scoundrels"--i.e., the players--seem to have caused the
authorities to examine the bill more closely; and on September 28,
1626, the Lord Keeper sent to Lord Conway a second letter in which he
condemned the measure in strong terms:[692]

_My Lord_,--According to His Majesty's good pleasure, which
I received from your lordship, I have considered of the
grant desired by John Williams and Thomas Dixon for building
an Amphitheatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields; and comparing it
with that which was propounded in King James his time, do
find much difference between them: for that former was
intended principally for martiall exercises, and
extraordinary shows, and solemnities for ambassadors and
persons of honor and quality, with a cessation from other
shows and sports for one day in a month only, upon 14 days'
warning: whereas by this new grant I see little probability
of anything to be used but common plays, or ordinary sports
now used or showed at the Bear Garden or the common
playhouses about London, for all