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.