| [Address, at back] To my worshipfull good freinde Mr. William Cotton geue these 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 up 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 psecuted by the L. Maior & the aldermen, & however in there old Lords tyme they thought there state setled, it is now so vncertayne they cannot build vpon it; & for the printers there is sutch gaping amongst them for the coppy of my L. of essex voyage and the ballet of the threscore and four knights that though my lord Marquesse write a second parte of his feuer lurden or idlenesse.......... ..................................................... or Churchyarde [e]nlarge his Chips, saying they were the very same wch christ in [Car]penters hall is paynted gathering vp as Ioseph his father [sta]nds hewing a peice of timber, & Mary his mother sitts [sp]inning by, yet wold not they giue for them the price of a [pr]oclamation out of date, or which is the contemptiblest summe [tha]t may bee, (worse than a scute or a dandiprat) the price of [ ] Harveys works bound up together. Only mr harrington {of} late hath sett up sutch filthy stinking iakes in pouls churchyard, that the stationers wold giue any mony for a couer [fo]r it. what shold moue him to it I know not, except he [m]eant to bid a turd in all gentle readers teeth, or whereas [D]on Diego & Brokkenbury beshitt pouls, to prevent the like incon- [u]enience, he hath reuiued an old innes a court tricke of turning [ ]out in a paper, & framed close stools for them t[o] carry [in] there pockets as gentlewomen do there spuges th[ ] [ ] O it is detestable and abhominable, farre worse then [Mu]nday[s] ballet of vntruesse, or Gillian a Braynfords [Wi]ll in which she bequeathed a score of farts amongst her frends [&] able to make any man haue a stinking breath that lookes [b]ut on the outstide of it. Sure had I beene of his cousayle he shold haue sett for ye mott or word before it Fah, & dedicated it to the house of the shakerlies that giue for there armes thre doggs turds reaking, For my paarte I pitty him & pray for him that he may haue many good stooles to his last ending, & so I wold wish all his frends to pray, for otherwise it is to be feared yt according as Seneca reports the last words Claudi- ius Ces was hard to speake were Hei mihi vereor concacaui me so he will die with a turd in his mouth at his last gaspe & bee coffind vp in a iakes farmer tunne no other nosewise christian, for his horrible pfume being able to come nere him. well some men for sorrow singe as it is in the ballet of Iohn Carelesse in the booke of martirs & I am merry whe[n] I haue nere a penny in my purse. God may moue you though I say nothing, in wch hope that that wch wilbee shalbe I take my leaue.
yours in acknowledgement
of the deepest [bond]
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