Genest indeed, supposes it to have been brought out by the King's Company after their removal to the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields.[25] Their own house in Drury Lane having been destroyed by fire in January, 1672, they opened, on the 26th of February following, the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, which had been untenanted since the migration of the Duke's Company to Dorset Gardens in the preceding November, with a representation of Beaumont and Fletcher's _Wit without Money_. This was succeeded, in order, by _Arviragus and Philicia_ and Dryden's _Marriage à la Mode_, after which, Genest thinks, _Love in a Wood_ was produced. But, on this supposition, the first performance of _Love in a Wood_ must have taken place later than that of _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_, and in that case it seems hardly probable that Wycherley should describe himself as a _new_ author in the dedication to the former play. Moreover, the prologue to Wycherley's third comedy, _The Country Wife_, contains a distinct allusion to the recent ill-fortune of _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_, which we can scarcely suppose the author would have thus referred to, had a successful play of his been produced in the interval, and that by the same company which brought forward _The Country Wife_. In fact, the only argument which I can conceive it possible to adduce in support of Genest must be based upon a conjecture that not only _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_, but _Love in a Wood_ also, had failed to win the favour of the public, and that it is the latter play to which allusion is intended in the prologue to _The Country Wife_. That _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_ proved a failure is certain; that _Love in a Wood_ succeeded, we have no direct evidence, but of circumstantial sufficient, I think, to prove the point. The general assumption in its favour we may pass; but the whole tone of the dedication, though it afford us no information, in so many words, as to the fate of the piece, forbids us to believe that it can have been indited by the "baffled scribbler" of a condemned comedy. Indeed, had the piece thus failed, it is quite inconceivable that Wycherley would have had the temerity to offer it to the Duchess; he would rather have sent it into the world silently, and without the flourish of a dedication, as was actually the case with _The Gentleman Dancing-Master_. Dennis, moreover, declares expressly that _Love in a Wood_ brought its author acquainted with the wits of the Court, and we may question whether the reputation of an unprosperous playwright would have proved the surest passport to their intimacy.