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[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