sorts of beholders, with a
restraint to all other plays and shows for one day in the
week upon two days' warning: with liberty to erect their
buildings in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where there are too many
buildings already; and which place in the late King's time
upon a petition exhibited by the Prince's comedians for
setting up a playhouse there, was certified by eleven
Justices of Peace under their hands to be very inconvenient.
And therefore, not holding this new grant fit to pass, as
being no other in effect but to translate the playhouses and
Bear Garden from the Bankside to a place much more unfit, I
thought fit to give your lordship these reasons for it;
wherewithal you may please to acquaint His Majesty, if there
shall be cause. And so remain your lordship's very assured
friend to do you service,

THO. COVENTRYE.

CANBURY, 28 _Sept._, 1626.
LO. CONWAY.

[Footnote 692: I quote the letter from Collier, _The History of
English Dramatic Poetry_ (1879), I, 444.]

On the letter Lord Conway has written the indorsement: "That it is
unfit the grant for the Amphitheatre should passe." And such, no
doubt, was the ultimate decision of the Privy Council, for we hear
nothing more of the project.

III

OGILBY'S DUBLIN THEATRE

In 1635 a playhouse was opened in Dublin by John
Ogilby,--dancing-master, theatrical manager, playwright, scholar,
translator, poet,--now best known, perhaps, for the ridicule he
inspired in Dryden's _MacFlecknoe_ and Pope's _Dunciad_. At the
beginning of his versatile career he was a successful London
dancing-master, popular with "the nobility and gentry." When Thomas
Earl of Strafford was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he took
Ogilby with him to Dublin, to teach his wife and children the art of
dancing, and also to help with the secretarial duties. Under
Strafford's patronage, Ogilby was appointed to the post of Master of
the Revels for Ireland; and in this capacity he built a small
playhouse in Dublin and began to cultivate dramatic representations
after the manner of London. Anthony a Wood in _Athenae Oxonienses_,
says:

He built a little theatre to act plays in, in St. Warburg's
street in Dublin, and was then and there valued by all
ingenious men for his great industry in promoting morality
and ingenuity.[693]

[Footnote 693: Bliss's edition, III, 741.]

Aubrey writes: