Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850 | Page 2

I
do not remember to have seen in print, or even referred to in print.
None of the books into which I have looked, from deeming them likely
to contain it, make the least reference to this song. I have heard it in one
of the midland counties, and in one of the western, both many years
ago; but I have not heard it in London or any of the metropolitan
districts. The song begins thus:--
"London Bridge is broken down, Dance over my Lady Lea: London
Bridge is broken down, With a gay ladée."
This must surely refer to some event preserved in history,--may indeed
be well known to well-read antiquaries, though so totally unknown to
men whose general pursuits (like my own) have lain in other directions.
The present, however, is an age for "popularising" knowledge; and
your work has assumed that task as one of its functions.
The difficulties attending such inquiries as arise out of matters so trivial
as an old ballad, are curiously illustrated by the answers already printed
respecting the "wooing frog." In the first place, it was attributed to
times within living memory; then shown to exceed that period, and
supposed to be very old,--even as old as the Commonwealth, or,
perhaps, as the Reformation. This is objected to, from "the style and
wording of the song being evidently of a much later period than the age
of Henry VIII.;" and Buckingham's "mad" scheme of taking Charles
into Spain to woo the infanta is substituted. This is enforced by the
"burden of the song;" whilst another correspondent considers this
"chorus" to be an old one, analogous to "Down derry down:"--that is, M.
denies the force of MR. MAHONY's explanation altogether!
(Why MR. MAHONY calls a person in his "sixth decade" a
"sexagenarian" he best knows. Such is certainly not the ordinary
meaning of the term he uses. His pun is good, however.)
Then comes the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT, with a very decisive proof
that neither in the time of James I., nor of the Commonwealth, could it
have originated. His transcript from Mr. Collier's Extracts carries it
undeniably back to the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. Of course, it is
interesting to find intermediate versions or variations of the ballad, and
even the adaptation of its framework to other ballads of recent times,

such as "Heigho! says Kemble,"--one of the Drury Lane "O.P. Row"
ballads (_Rejected Addresses_, last ed., or Cunningham's _London_).
Why the conjecture respecting Henry VIII. is so contemptuously
thrown aside as a "fancy," I do not see. A fancy is a dogma taken up
without proof, and in the teeth of obvious probability,--tenaciously
adhered to, and all investigation eschewed. This at least is the ordinary
signification of the term, in relation to the search after truth. How far
my own conjecture, or the mode of putting it, fulfills these conditions,
it is not necessary for me to discuss: but I hope the usefulness and
interest of the "NOTES AND QUERIES" will not be marred by any
discourtesy of one correspondent towards another.
At the same time, the HERMIT OF HOLYPORT has done the most
essential service to this inquiry by his extract from Mr. Collier, as the
question is thereby inclosed within exceedingly narrow limits. But if
the ballad do not refer to Henry VIII., to whom can it be referred with
greater probability? It is too much to assume that all the poetry, wit,
and talent of the Tudor times were confined to the partizans of the
Tudor cause, religious or political. We _know_, indeed, the contrary.
But for his communication, too, the singular coincidence of two such
characteristic words of the song in the "Poley Frog" (in the same
number of the "NOTES AND QUERIES") might have given rise to
another conjecture: but the date excludes its further consideration.
I may add, that since this has been mooted, an Irish gentleman has told
me that the song was familiar enough in Dublin; and he repeated some
stanzas of it, which were considerably different from the version of
W.A.G., and the chorus the same as in the common English version. I
hope presently to receive a complete copy of it: which, by the bye, like
everything grotesquely humorous in Ireland, was attributed to the
author of _Gulliver's Travels_.
T.S.D.
* * * * *
"JUNIUS IDENTIFIED."
It is fortunate for my reputation that I am still living to vindicate my
title to the authorship of my own book, which seems otherwise in
danger of being taken from me.
I can assure your correspondent R.J. (Vol. ii., p. 103.) that I was not
only "literally _the writer_," (as he kindly suggests, with a view of

saving my credit for having put my name to the book), but in its fullest
sense