John Ogilby

John Ogilby, Ogelby, or Oglivie (17 November 1600 – 4 September 1676) was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer, and his version of the Fables of Aesop.

Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre in Werburgh Street, Dublin, and following the Restoration, that country's first Theatre Royal. Ogilby played a significant part in arrangements for the coronation of King Charles II. Following the Great Fire of 1666, Ogilby's large-scale map of the City of London was founded on precise survey work, and his Britannia is the first road atlas of England and Wales to be based on surveys and measurements, and drawn to scale.

John Ogilby's birthplace and parentage are historically uncertain; most early biographies of Ogilby rely on the notes of his assistant John Aubrey that were made for Aubrey's Brief Lives, a collection of biographies of Ogilby and others. The accuracy of Aubrey's account is questionable; Aubrey noted Ogilby was evasive about his origins, saying only he was born "near Edinburgh" in 1600 "of a gentleman's family". Later scholarship has discovered that in 1653, Ogilby consulted the noted astrologer Elias Ashmole, and that Ashmole subsequently included Ogilby's horoscope in a personal collection of his horoscopes of notable people. The horoscope required precise data; Ashmole gives the exact location of Ogilby's birth as "Killemeure" (Kirriemuir near Dundee) and the exact date and time as 17 November 1600 at 04:00.

Ogilby believed himself to be at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, given at birth to John Ogilby (senior), a well-off gentleman's tailor in Edinburgh, to be adopted. He was most likely educated at the Merchant Taylors' grammar school in London. At eleven years old, Ogilby was indentured as an apprentice to John Draper, one of just three licensed dance masters in London. At the time, a dancing master had expertise in "grammar (elocution), rhetoric, logic, philosophy, history, music, mathematics and in other arts": ability to dance in "Old Measures" was considered an essential skill for the upper classes. In 1617, Draper became a barrister at Gray's Inn and released Ogilby, who by then was highly accomplished as a dancer and a teacher, from the apprenticeship, allowing him to set up as a master in his own right and to take part in theatrical performances. A fall while dancing in a masque in February 1619 (aged 18), however, lamed him for life and ended his career as a dancer, though not as a teacher.

Information about John Ogilby's early adulthood is limited. According to Ashmole's horoscope, in 1625, Ogilby suffered from a "double quotidian ague" (a form of malaria) he most probably contracted while fighting in the Low Countries under Colonel Sir Charles Rich. In May 1626, he is recorded as holding the rank of lieutenant in the army of Count Mansfield, subsequently becoming a prisoner of war in Dunkirk from July 1626 to June 1627. From June to November 1627, Ogilby was one of the few survivors of the ill-fated English Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, returning to England as acting Captain of a supply ship.

In August 1633, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the newly appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, invited Ogilby to Ireland to be dancing tutor to his wife and children, and a member of his troop of guards. While in Dublin, Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre, the Werburgh Street Theatre. In 1637, as a consequence of this enterprise and to discourage competitors, Wentworth appointed Ogilby as Master of the Revels for Ireland, with power to permit and forbid performances. The theatre remained open for four years; it had mixed success but it had to be closed as a result of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. With theatre and dancing ruled out, Ogilby spent his time learning Latin and then translating the complete works of Virgil.

Ogilby returned to England in January 1647, being shipwrecked on his homeward journey. The manuscript of his Virgil translation, which he had carefully placed in waterproof wrapping, survived the incident and was published in October 1648 with the sponsorship of Royalist gentlefolk and nobility.

In 1650, Ogilby married rich heiress Christian Hunsdon, a widow in her sixties and about 17 years Ogilby's senior. The following year, he published the first edition of his work The fables of Aesop paraphras'd in verse, and adorn'd with sculpture and illustrated with annotations, which was illustrated by Francis Cleyn. Ogilby's version of the text was very successful, running to five editions in the following 15 years.