plying her little skiff between the joining river, at a time when Lon a single bridge, and devoting all h those amassed by her parents, to th house upon its bank. To this ror following notice, appears to give "This church, or some other in p time, long before the Conquest, a h by a maiden named Mary. Unto sisters she left (as was left her by sight and profits of a cross ferry o kept before that any bridge was sisters was afterwards, by Swithin, into a college of priests, who, in pla a bridge of timber." In 1106 t second foundation for canons regul

The priory was seriously injure Southwark in 1212, after which hospital in the neighbourhood, in all the services of their church Mary Overie were completed. of the fourteenth century we h this priory. King Edward I. make of his aged servants to be adn answer is that the body is so poor goods, rents, and possessions can their own maintenance without t faithful." Towards the close of t was repaired and restored; and of the principal funds? The kin -John Gower. At the commend

ST. MARY OVERIE, SOUTHWARK.

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century (1510) we find this church first spoken of as St. Saviour's. In 1539 the priory was dissolved, and a few years later the church became connected with a religious persecution, carried to an extreme which this country never witnessed before or since. Within its walls there sat a dread tribunal, from which holy martyrs passed to the fiery stake at Smithfield-two or three hundred Protestant victims perishing in the course of three years. About 1578 the church was repaired in many parts, "and within throughout richly and very worthily beautified; and about 1713 we learn that "this is now a very magnificent church, since the late reparation. It hath an huge organ, which was procured by voluntary subscription. The repair (it is said) cost the parish £2600, and that well laid out. The old monuments are all refreshed and new painted." During the present century upwards of £50,000 have been expended upon St. Saviour's. The far-famed Lady Chapel-which narrowly escaped destruction in preparing the approaches to London Bridge-occupies the eastern extremity of the church. It is the side pointed out by Stow as the ancient house of sisters beyond the choir." Mary Overie is said to have been buried here, though no monument records her memory.

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There are numerous monuments here to detain us, more especially the fine effigy in the choir of a knight cross-legged, probably one of those distinguished patrons who, in 1106, refounded the establishment; and formerly, in the Lady Chapel, stood the tomb of a grocer, with one of the quaint inscriptions of the place:

"Weep not for him, since he is gone before

To heaven, where grocers there are many more."

We pass by, however, the many and seek that sumptuous pile in the to the memory of

JOHN GOWER

the poet of the fourteenth century the revival of modern learning. Boccaccio in Italy, and Chaucer impulse to the movement, and temporary. It was in this church married to Alice Groundolf, the cere by William of Wykeham. Gower who in this church received at the a The minstrel king, James of Scotla ried here. Taken prisoner when a for years in captivity, and from h Castle he beheld the beauteous Ja the cardinal of that name, by whon diately made captive. Gower's bride her monument has long since disapp fear of the exquisite tomb before preserved as long as the sacred buil related, Gower contributed the pri funds when the building needed canons marked their gratitude to th continuing to perform a yearly obiit hanging up a tablet near to the tom "Whosoever prayeth for the soul of so oft as he so doth, have a M. and In the front of this tomb is inscr

JOHN GOWER-JOHN FLETCHER.

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Gower, Esq., a celebrated English poet, also a benefactor to the sacred edifice in the time of Edward III. and Richard II." Gower's fame as a poet rests upon his "Confessio Amantis," his only published work, and which was written by him in accordance with the wishes of Richard II., the circumstance being thus related by the poet himself:

"In Themse [Thames] when it was flowende,

As I by boat came rowend,

So as Fortune her time set

My liege lord perchance I met;
And so befel as I came nigh

Out of my boat, when he me sigh [saw]

He bad me to come into his barge,
And when I was with him at large
Amonges other things he said,

He hath this charge upon me laid,
And bade me do my business,
That to his high worthiness

Some newe thing I should book."

The monument was removed to the present site, and repaired and coloured in 1832, at the expense of Gower, first Duke of Sutherland. Gower's monument has always been taken care of.

The remains of another poet were subsequently received into this church, namely,

JOHN FLETCHER.

This fact we learn from the register of St. Mary Overie, which, under the date of 1625, records the burial of “Mr.

John Fletcher, a man, in the ch friend of Beaumont, with whom his united. He was the son of the Re Elizabeth made Bishop of Bristol, to the more lucrative see of Lon fifty dramas are appended the nar Fletcher, though it is probable the friend in more than half that numb his brother dramatist ten years. Th ing his death are thus described great plague of 1625 a knight o invited him into the country: he st self a suit of clothes, and, while it and died. This I heard from the ta old man and clerk of St. Mary Ove Within this church was likewise i in a name which will be forgotten whom, individually, little is known.

EDMUND SHAKSP

youngest brother to our great drama "a player," probably through his g tion with the theatre. The regist church at Stratford-upon-Avon in there baptized on the 3rd of M books of St. Mary Overie tell us tha on the 31st of December, 1607. S of all that is known of Edmund Sh

Leaving the interior of the church