“Such is the story related by this tract; and, if it were possible, one might suppose, that the pious maiden, out of her filial love, had placed that effigy in her fane, which I before mentioned to be sculptured in memory of her father; since it would, by no means, improperly represent the cadaverous features of the old Waterman. The figure, itself, is of the third form of the classes of Sepulchral Monuments, invented by Maurice Johnson, Esq.,--namely, tables with effigies or sculptures,--and the last of the arrangement adopted by Smart Lethullier, Esq., that is to say,--the representation of a skeleton in a shroud, lying either under, or on, a table tomb. Richard Gough, you know, in his ‘_Sepulchral Monuments_,’ London, 1786-96, folio, volume i., part 1, Introduction, page cxi. where you will find all these particulars, attributes most of these figures to the fifteenth century, and Audery certainly died very long before the time of William I. However this may be, as I am laying before you all the illustrations of Bridge history, both authentic and traditional, which are now to be found, I must not omit to add, that the supposed effigy of Audery is six feet eight inches in length; and represents his decayed body lying in its winding-sheet. His hair is turned up in a roll above his head, though in the ‘_History of Southwark_,’ by M. Concannen, Junior, and A. Morgan, Deptford, 1795, octavo, page 101, _Note_, he is erroneously stated to have ‘a shorn crown,’ and is, therefore, supposed to represent Linsted, the last Prior of St. Mary’s. “Captain Francis Grose has inserted this figure, not very respectably engraven, in his ‘_Antiquities of England and Wales_,’ London, 1773-87, royal quarto, six volumes, in the Addenda attached to volume iv., plate iii.; and he observes, on page 36, that ‘it is 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,’ as he remarks on the preceding page, but died in the attempt, having first reduced himself to that appearance. The best engraving of this effigy was published in ‘_Mr. J. T. Smith’s Antiquities of London, and its Environs_,’ London, 1791, quarto. “Be this figure, however, who it may, the Waterman or the Priest, his tomb has outlived both his name and his dust. Whether he only carried passengers over the River Thames, or was occupied in teaching them how to cross that last fatal River,--which John Bunyan quaintly tells you hath _no_ Bridge,--‘after life’s fitful fever he sleeps well,’-- “Aye, and so shall I soon,” cried I, stretching myself, and interrupting Mr. Postern; “let him rest in peace, my good Sir, and come out of Church now; for, truly, it’s high time to close your Sermon, and let us hear somewhat about a River which _hath_ a Bridge, that was once the wonder of the world.”