[Illustration] CHAPTER XVII. THE OLD BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK. The first object that still strikes the eye when we have passed over into the Borough is the beautiful old church founded by a Saxon maiden called Mary of the Ferry, which in time was corrupted into Mary Overy, and is now called St. Saviour's. No young poet need wish for a finer subject to try his hand on than this beautiful half holy old legend of the Ferryman's Daughter, who, day after day, winter and summer, was seen with her quaint old-fashioned Saxon boat, ready to row passengers from the Borough to the City, and back again to the landing-place, where the Ferry-house had stood centuries before a bridge united the two shores. Pleasant to her ear must have been the lapping of the waves as they washed her little freehold, and fell with a dreamy murmuring upon the ear, while she sat revolving in her mind how she should begin to build a house for the reception of a few poor and pious sisters, in which they might live in content and comfort, and holy quiet; and when she was no more, there pray for the soul of Mary of the Ferry. And thus was the present St. Saviour's first founded. In this ancient cathedral-like church, Gower, the contemporary of Chaucer, lies buried; his beautiful monument still exists. Our own immortal Shakspeare was no doubt a mourner here two hundred years ago, on the last day of December, 1607, when in the forenoon he attended the funeral of his brother Edmund. Perhaps the funeral took place earlier in the day, on account of the merry-making which our forefathers held at the close of the old year, and kept up until the new year had grown far into the day; and that this was the cause why Edmund Shakspeare was buried in the church "with a forenoone knell of the great bell." Edmund was himself a player, and we can readily conjure up the images of those who witnessed his interment. Were we to dwell upon the solemn memories which float around this hoary pile, they would alone fill this chapter; for Fletcher is buried here, so is Massinger; but not, as was supposed, "in a gloomy corner amid a mass of misshapen and melancholy graves," for he is buried "within the church."