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 strongly expressive of the most miserable poverty. He had, as we have already seen, 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 good will, to have any sight of her, much less access unto her.’ A young gallant, however, who seems to have thought more of being the Waterman’s heir than his son-in-law, took the opportunity, whilst he was engaged at the Ferry, to be admitted into her company; ‘the first interview,’ says the story, ‘pleased well; the second better; but the third concluded the match between them.--In all this 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. From the disgusting instances which are given of this caitiff’s avarice, he would seem to have been the very prototype and model of Elwes and Dancer; and, as the title-page of the book sets forth, even his death was the effect of his covetousness. 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 plan, 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 brake 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,