with the barbarous Getes. Therefore comfort thy selfe sweete Tom, with Ciceros glorious return to Rome, & with the counsel Aeneas giues to his seabeaten soldiors.'
We learn something more from Nashes Lenten Stuffe (S. R. 11 Jan.
1599), where he tells us that he is sequestered from the wonted means
of his maintenance and exposed to attacks on his fame, through 'the
straunge turning of the Ile of Dogs from a commedie to a tragedie
two summers past, with the troublesome stir which hapned aboute it',
and goes on to explain the 'infortunate imperfit Embrion of my idle
houres, the Ile of Dogs before mentioned . . . was no sooner borne
but I was glad to run from it'; which is what brought him to Yarmouth.
In a marginal note he adds 'An imperfit Embrion I may
well call it, for I hauing begun but the induction and first act of it,
the other foure acts without my consent, or the least guesse of my
drift or scope, by the players were supplied, which bred both their
trouble and mine to' (McKerrow, iii. 153). Of this there is perhaps
some confirmation in the list of writings on the cover of the Northumberland
MS. which records the item, not now extant in the MS.,
'Ile of doges frmn^t by Thomas Nashe inferior plaiers'. This MS.
contains work by Bacon (q.v.), and if the entry is not itself
based on Lenten Stuffe, it may indicate that Bacon was professionally
concerned in the proceedings to which the play gave rise. McKerrow,
v. 31, points out that the evidence is against the suggestion in the
Trimming of Thomas Nashe (S. R. 11 Oct. 1597) that Nashe suffered
imprisonment for the play. The Privy Council letter of 15 Aug. 1597
(cf. App. D, No. cxi) was no doubt intended to direct his apprehension,
but, as I pointed out in M. L. R. iv. 410, 511, the actor and maker of
plays referred to therein as actually in prison must have been Ben
Jonson, who was released by the Council on 3 Oct. 1597 (cf. App. D,
No. cxii). The connexion of Jonson (q.v.) with the Isle of Dogs is
noted in Satiromastix. With him the Council released Gabriel Spencer
and Robert Shaw, and the inference is that the peccant company was
Pembroke's (q.v.) at the Swan on Bankside. The belief that it was
the Admiral's at the Rose only rests on certain forged interpolations
by Collier in Henslowe's diary. These are set out by Greg (Henslowe,
i. xl). The only genuine mention of the affair in the diary is the provision
noted in the memorandum of Borne's agreement of 10 Aug. 1597
that his service is to begin 'imediatly after this restraynt is recaled by
the lordes of the counsell which restraynt is by the meanes of playinge
the Ieylle of Dooges' (Henslowe, i. 203). The restraint was ordered
by the Privy Council on 28 July 1597 (App. D, No. cx), presumably
soon after the offence, the nature of which is only vaguely described
as the handling of 'lewd matters'. Perhaps it is possible, at any rate
in conjecture, to be more specific. By dogs we may take it that Nashe
meant men. The idea was not new to him. In Summer's Last Will
and Testament he makes Orion draw an elaborate parallel between
dogs and men, at the end of which Will Summer says that he had not
thought 'the ship of fooles would haue stayde to take in fresh water at
