[1596, July 22. Privy Council Minute, printed Dasent, xxvi. 38.]
Letters to the Justices of Middlesex and Surrey to restrayne the
players from shewing or using anie plaies or interludes in the places
usuall about the citty of London, for that by drawing of muche
people together increase of sicknes is feared.
cv.
[1596, c. Sept. Extract from letter of T. Nashe to William Cotton,
printed with facsimile by McKerrow, Nashe, v. 194, from Cotton MS.
Julius, C. iii, f. 280. Internal evidence bears out the 'T. Nashe' subscribed
in a nineteenth-century hand. The original signature has gone,
but the top of 'N' was declared to be visible by Collier, who printed
the letter in H. E. D. P. (1831), i. 303; it is also in Grosart, Nashe, i. lxi.
The date is suggested by an allusion to the return of Essex from Cadiz
on 10 Aug. 1596, and the beginning of term on 9 Oct. 1596. Allusions
to Harington's Metamorphosis of Ajax (S. R. 30 Oct. 1596) might point to
a rather later date, but Harington's dedication is dated 3 Aug. 1596, and
the first issue may not have been registered.]
Sir this tedious dead vacation is to mee as vnfortunate as a terme
at Hertford or St. Albons to poore cuntry clients or Iack Cades
rebellion to the lawyers, wherein they hanged vp the L. cheife iustice.
In towne I stayd (being earnestly inuited elsewhere) vpon had I wist
hopes, & an after harvest I expected by writing for the stage & for
the presse, when now the players as if they had writt another Christs
tears, ar piteously persecuted by the L. Maior & the aldermen, &
howeuer in there old Lords tyme they thought there state setled, it
is now so vncertayne they cannot build vpon it.
cvi.
[1596, Nov. Petition by Inhabitants of Blackfriars to Privy Council,
printed by Halliwell-Phillipps, i. 304, from undated copy assignable by
the handwriting to c. 1631 in S. P. D. Eliz. cclx. 116. The date is given
by No. cvii; cf. Bk. iv, s.v. Blackfriars. The document has been suspected
as a forgery, but is probably genuine, although it is odd to find Lord
Hunsdon as a signatory, since one would have supposed that he could
influence James Burbage through his son Richard, who was one of
Hunsdon's players. Collier, who first produced it, misdated it 1576, and
used it to support a theory that the Blackfriars was built in 1576 (i. 219).
Curiously enough, he used it again for 1596 (i. 287), and added to it an
alleged counter-petition by the Chamberlain's men, now in S. P. D. Eliz.
cclx. 117, which is certainly a forgery. Hunsdon was not Chamberlain
in Nov. 1596.]
To the right honorable the Lords and others of her Majesties most
honorable Privy Councell,—Humbly shewing and beseeching your
honors, the inhabitants of the precinct of the Blackfryers, London,
that whereas one Burbage hath lately bought certaine roomes in the
same precinct neere adjoyning unto the dwelling houses of the right
