42 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2>"J S. VII. Jax. 15. '59. 



cut of the fish, and underneath the following 

 line&) : — 



" The Workes of God how great and strange they be, 

 A Picture plaine behold heare may you see." 



Two years later, Timothy Granger penned, and 

 Thomas Colwell printed, a prose description of 



" A moste true and marveilous straunge wonder the 

 lyke hath seldom been seene of xvii Monstrous fishes 

 taken in SufFolke at Downam Brj'dge, within a myle of 

 Ipswiche, the xi daye of October in the yeare of our Lorde 

 God 1568." 



Stow, in his Annales, has left us a particular 

 description of this " wondrous draught of fishes ;" 

 some of them being "eight and twentie foote in 

 length, at the least." 



The following year " C. R.," probably Clement 

 Robinson, the author of Pleasant Sonnets and 

 Stories in Metre, favoured the world with 



" The true description of this marvellous straunge 

 Fishe, which was taken on thursdaj' was sennight, the 

 16 day of June, this present month,- in the year of our 

 Lord God 1569." 



This production also came from the fertile press 

 of Thomas Colwell, " beneath the Conduit, at the 

 signe of Saint John Evangelist," in Fleet-street. 

 A copy is preserved in the rare collection of 

 George Daniel of Islington. Like its predecessor, 

 it is ornamented with the "effigies," in wood, of 

 the " strange fish." 



Wolfe, in 1586, printed a broadside containing 

 an account of a monster fish found in the heart of 

 a horse ! And on the Registers of the Stationers' 

 Company for 1595, is entered an account of "A 

 strange and hughe fishe dryven on the Sandes at 

 Outhorne in Holdernes, in Februarye." The in- 

 teresting books of the same Company also contain 

 an entry, in 1604, of "A strange reporte of a 

 monstrous fish that appeared in the form of a wo- 

 man from her waist upward, seone in the sea." 



'In Sir Henry Herbert's Office Book, which con- 

 tains a register of all the shows of London from 

 1623 to 1642, occurs " A licence to Francis Sher- 

 ret to show a straunge fish for a yeare, from the 

 10th of March, 1635." 



In the Gough Collection, preserved in the Bod- 

 leian library, is a curious prose tract of eight 

 quarto pages, "printed for Nath. Butter, 1642," 

 with the following quaint title : — 



" A Relation of a terrible ilonster, taken by a Fisher- 

 man near Wollage, July 15, 1G42, and is now to be seen 

 in King Street, Westminster, the shape whereof is like 

 a Toad, and may be called a Toad- Fish ; but that wliich 

 makes it a Monster is, that it hath hands with fingers 

 like a man, and is chested like a man, being neere five 

 foot long, and three feet over the thickness of an ordinary 

 man. Whereunto is added, a relation of a bloudy en- 

 counter betwixt the Lord Faulconbridge and Sir John 

 Hotham, wherein the Duke of Richmond is hurt and the 

 Lord Faulconbridge taken prisoner." 



These notices of "strange fish" might readily 

 be multiplied, but they will serve to introduce the 



following broadside, which is copied literatim from 

 the original in my possession : — 



" A most Strange but True 

 Account 

 of a very 

 Large Sea-Monster, 

 " That was found last Saturday in a Common-Shore in 

 New Fleet-Street in Spittle-Fields, where at the Black- 

 Swan Alehouse, thousands of People resort to see it: 

 Herein you have the Dimensions of the said Surprizing 

 Creature, with the various Conjectures of several able 

 Men concerning what may be the Omen of this Creature's 

 leaving the Sea, and to rove so far under Ground, the 

 Common-Shore where it was found running above two 

 Miles before it empties itself at Blackwall : The occasion 

 of this Creature's coming hither being likewise hinted on 



by P ge in his Monthly Prognostications for this 



year 1704. 



" Presaging the several mutations which are approach- 

 ing to Kingdoms, States, and Commonwealths, something 

 appears wond'rous in the Heavens, Earth, or Watry Ele- 

 ment, by frightful Blazing Comets, Monstrous Births, or 

 strange Fishes leaving their deep Habitations of the Sea 

 to swim in Brooks and Rivers : and as to strange Omens 

 foretelling Alterations in this Kingdom, our Chronicles 

 give an Account that when King Ethelred ascended the 

 Throne by his Mother's murdering his Brother Edward, 

 upon his Coronation- Day, a Cloud was seen throughout 

 England, half resembling Blood, and half Fire; which 

 Prodigy was the forerunner of the Danes landing h^fe 

 three years after, and committing great outrages in divers 

 parts of the Kingdom. Before William Rufus was kill'd 

 by Sir Walter Tyn-el in Neiv Forrest, two blazing Stars 

 appeared ; and at Finchliamstead, near Abington in Berk- 

 shii'e, a Well of Bloody colour'd water sprung up for 

 fifteen days, and then ceased/ Before Henry the Second 

 dyed it rained Blood in the Isle of Wight, for the space of 

 two hours ; a Dragon of marvellous bigness was dis- 

 covered at St. Osyph in Essex ; an Earthquake rented in 

 pieces the Cathedral at Lincoln ; and in Orford in Sussex, 

 certain Fisher-men drew up in their Net" a Hairy Crea- 

 ture out of the Sea, in all Proportions like a Man, which 

 was exposed to the Sight of Thousands, living upon 

 Flesh, but in the end stole from his Keepers and got to 

 Sea again. In the Reign of Henry the Third, four Suns 

 appeared from the rising to the setting, after which fol- 

 lowed a great Famine. Before Richard's resignation of 

 his Crown, to Henry the Fourth, the Bay and Lawrel 

 Trees withered throughout England. In the time of 

 Henry the Sixth, whilst a great Fight was at Ludlow 

 betwixt the two Houses of York and Lancaster, three 

 Suns appeared in the Firmament, which immediately 

 united into one, and the next Reign began the Union of 

 the Families. And so when Oliver CromweWs Usurpation 

 was at end, the Members of the Calves head Club con- 

 federate the Devil fetcht him away in a terrible Whirl- 

 wind. But now as strange a Wonder ensues, which take 

 as follows. 



" On Saturday last, being the 20th of this instant ifefay, 

 something of a strange unusual Shape was perceived to 

 be in a Common Shore in Neiu- Fleet- street in Spittle- 

 Fields, which excited their Curiosity who saw it, to make 

 a further search into the Matter, and accordinglj' going 

 into the Common-shore (which runs above two miles 

 under Ground before it empties it self at Blackwall), they 

 dragged the Creature out, which was a dead Porpoise of 

 a very large Size, it being above Four Foot in Length, 

 and Three Foot about, which now is to be seen at the 

 Sign of the Black- Swan, an Alehouse, in New- Meet- Street 

 in Spittle- Fields, as aforesaid, to which thousands of Peo- 

 ple daily resort to view it : Now as to the Nature of this 



