Note 79 — Chapter V · The return of the Angler and Painter to Ashbourne, through Dove Dale.

The incident here referred to, of a book found in the belly of a cod-fish, taken on the Norfolk coast, and brought to Cambridge market, on Midsummer eve, 1626, is no less true than strange. Fuller attests the fact in his Worthies of England, folio, p. 359, and says he was in Cambridge at the time: and in Parr’s Life and Letters of Archbishop Usher, folio, p. 345, is a letter from his Grace to Dr. Samuel Ward, dated 30th June, 1626, in answer to his communication of the same fact. I have myself seen a copy of one of these treatises, in ‘sexto decimo,’ printed in black letter, and entitled ‘The Preparation to the Crosse and to Death, and of the Comfort under the Crosse and Death.’ John Frith, who suffered martyrdom in 1533, was the author.—Ed.