STORY OF THE FERRYMAN'S DAUGHTER,

ST. MARY OVERS, AND THE FIRST LONDON BRIDGE.

IN the British Museum is a singularly curious, although probably fabulous, tract of 30 pages, entitled "The True History of the Life and sudden Death of old John Overs, the rich Ferry-man of London, showing how he lost his life by his own covetousness. And of his daughter Mary, who caused the Church of St. Mary Overs in Southwark to be built; and of the building of London Bridge." The History opens as follows: "Before there was any Bridge at all built over the Thames, there was only a Ferry, to which divers Boats belonged, to transport all Passengers betwixt Southwark and Churchyard Alley, that being the high-road way betwixt Middlesex and Sussex and London. The Ferry was rented of the City, by one John Overs, which he enjoyed for many years together, to his great profit; for it is to be imagined, that no small benefit could arise from the ferrying over footmen, horsemen, all manner of cattle, all market folks that came with provisions to the City, strangers and others."

Overs, however, though he kept several servants, and apprentices, was of so covetous a soul, that notwithstanding he possessed an estate equal to that of the best Alderman in London, acquired by unceasing labour, frugality, and usury, yet his habit and dwelling were

both strangely expressive of the most miserable poverty. He had an only daughter, "of a beautiful aspect," says the tract," and a pious disposition; whom he had care to see well and liberally educated, though at the cheapest rate; and yet so, that when she grew ripe and mature for marriage, he would suffer no man of what condition or quality soever, by his goodwill, to have any sight of her, much less access to her." A young gallant, however, who seems to have thought more of being the Ferryman's heir than his son-in-law, took the opportunity, while he was engaged at the Ferry, to be admitted into her company. "The first interview," says the story, "pleased well; the second better; the third concluded the match between them."

"In all this long interim, the poor silly rich old Ferryman, not dreaming of any such passages, but thinking all things to be as secure by land as he knew they were by water," continued his former wretched and penurious course of life. To save the expense of one day's food in his family, he formed a scheme to feign himself dead for twenty-four hours, in the vain expectation that his servants would, out of propriety, fast until after his funeral. Having procured his daughter to consent to this plot, even against her better nature, he was put into a sheet, and stretched out in his chamber, having one taper burning at his head, and another at his feet, according to the custom of the time. When, however, his servants were informed of his decease, instead of lamenting they were overjoyed, and, having danced round the body, they broke open his larder, and fell to banqueting. The Ferryman bore all this as long, and as much like a dead man, as he was able; "but when he could endure it no longer,' says the tract, "stirring and struggling in his sheet,

like a ghost with a candle in each hand, he purposed to rise up, and rate 'em for their sauciness and boldness; when one of them thinking that the Devil was about to rise in his likeness, being in a great amaze, catched hold of the butt-end of a broken oar, which was in the chamber, and being a sturdy knave, thinking to kill the Devil at the first blow, actually struck out his brains." It is added that the servant was acquitted, and the Ferryman made accessary and cause of his own death.

The estate of Overs then fell to his daughter, and her lover hearing of it, hastened up from the country; but, in riding post, his horse stumbled, and he broke his neck on the highway. The young heiress was almost distracted at these events, and was recalled to her faculties only by having to provide for her father's interment; for he was not permitted to have a Christian burial, being considered as an excommunicated man, on account of his extortions, usury, and truly miserable life. The Friars of Bermondsey Abbey were, however, prevailed upon, by money, their Abbot being then away, to give a little earth to the remains of the wretched Ferryman. But, upon the Abbot's return, observing a grave which had been recently covered in, and learning who lay there, he was not only angry with his Monks for having done such an injury to the Church for the sake of gain, but he also had the body taken up again, laid on the back of his own ass, and turning the animal out of the Abbey gates, desired of God that he might carry him to some place where he best deserved to be buried. The ass proceeded with a gentle and solemn pace through Kent Street, and along the highway, to the small pond once called St. Thomas

Waterings, then the common place of execution, and

shook off the Ferryman's body directly under the gibbet, where it was put into the ground without any kind of ceremony.

Mary Overs, extremely distressed by such a battalion of sorrows, and desirous to be free from the importunities of the numerous suitors for her hand and fortune, resolved to retire into a cloister, which she shortly afterwards did, having first provided for the building of that church which commemorates her name.

There is extant a monumental effigy preserved in the church, which is commonly reported to be that of Audery, the Ferryman, father of the foundress of St. Mary Overies. As a supplement to the story contained in the tract, it is related that the pious maiden, out of her filial love, had the effigy sculptured in memory of her father; since it was thought to represent the cadaverous features of the old Waterman : it represents a skeleton in a shroud; but the workmanship is of the 15th century, and Audery certainly died long before the time of William I. Capt. Grose has engraved this effigy in his Antiquities, and describes it as "a skeleton-like figure, of which the usual story is told, that the person thereby represented attempted to fast forty days in imitation of Christ," adding that he died in the attempt, having first reduced himself to that appearance.

Stow attributes the building of the first Wooden Bridge over the Thames at London to the pious brothers of St. Mary's Monastery, on the Bank-side ; and this on the authority of Linsted, the last Prior of St. Mary Overies, who, on surrendering his Convent, at the Dissolution, had a pension assigned him of 1007. per annum, which he enjoyed until 1553. From the

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Supplement to Dugdale's Monasticon, Stow states that a Ferry being kept in the place where the Bridge is built, the Ferryman and his wife deceasing, left the said Ferry to their only daughter, a maiden named Mary; which, with the goods left her by her parents, as also with the profits rising of the said Ferry, built a house of Sisters in the place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Overies Church, above the choir, where she was buried. Unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of the Ferry. But, afterwards, the said house of Sisters being converted into a College of Priests, the Priests built the bridge of timber, as all the other great bridges of this land were, and, from time to time, kept the same in good reparations. Till, at length, considering the great charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the Citizens of London, and others, a Bridge built with arches of stone," &c. This version has been much opposed by antiquaries, who are not inclined to attribute the building of the first Wooden Bridge to the Monks of Southwark.*

THE BALLAD OF "LONDON BRIDGE IS BROKEN DOWN.”

THIS very popular nurse's song, which is a metrical illustration of the connection of the River Lee and London Bridge, has a scattered history, which it is difficult to trace. One of the most elegant copies of the ballad is to be found in Ritson's rare and curious Gammer Gurton's Garland: or the Nursery Parnassus, and is as follows:

* See Chronicles of London Bridge, by an Antiquary, pp. 40-44.