Leeds, October 8. 1850.
* * * * *
"LONDON BRIDGE IS BROKEN DOWN."
(Vol. ii., p. 258.)
Your correspondent T.S.D. does not remember to have seen that interesting
old nursery ditty "London Bridge is broken down" printed, or even referred
to in print. For the edification then of all interested in the subject, I
send you the following.
The old song on "London Bridge" is printed in Ritson's _Gammer Gurton's
Garland_, and in Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes of England_; but both copies
are very imperfect. There are also some fragments preserved in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for September, 1823 (vol. xciii. p. 232.), and in
the _Mirror_ for November 1st of the same year. From these versions a
tolerably perfect copy has been formed, and printed in a little work, for
which I am answerable, entitled _Nursery Rhymes, with the Tunes to which
they are still sung in the Nurseries of England_. But the whole ballad has
probably been formed by many fresh additions in a long series of years, and
is, perhaps, almost interminable when received in all its different
versions.
The correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ remarks, that "London
Bridge is broken down" is an old ballad which, more than seventy years
previous, he had heard plaintively warbled by a lady who was born in the
reign of Charles II., and who lived till nearly that of George II. Another
correspondent to the same magazine, whose contribution, signed "D.," is
inserted in the same volume (December, p. 507.), observes, that the ballad
concerning London Bridge formed, in his remembrance, part of a Christmas
carol, and commenced thus:--
"Dame, get up and bake your pies,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
The requisition, he continues, goes on to the dame to prepare for the
feast, and her answer is--
"London Bridge is broken down,
On Christmas Day in the morning."
The inference always was, that until the bridge was rebuilt some stop would
be put to the dame's Christmas operations; but why the falling of a part of
London Bridge should form part of a Christmas carol it is difficult to
determine.
A Bristol correspondent, whose communication is inserted in that delightful
volume the _Chronicles of London Bridge_ (by Richard Thomson, of the London
Institution), says,--
"About forty years ago, one moonlight night, in a street in Bristol, his
attention was attracted by dance {339} and chorus of boys and girls, to
which the words of this ballad gave measure. The breaking down of the
bridge was announced as the dancers moved round in a circle, hand in hand;
and the question, 'How shall we build it up again?' was chanted by the
leader, whilst the rest stood still."