“In that treasury of singular fragments, the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ for September, 1823, volume xciii., page 232, there is another copy of this ballad, with some variations, inserted in a Letter, signed M. Green, in which there are the following stanzas, wanting in Ritson’s, and coming in immediately after the third verse, ‘Silver and gold will be stolen away;’ though it must be observed, that the propositions for building the Bridge with iron and steel, and wood and stone, have, in this copy also, already been made and objected to.
‘Then we must set a man to watch,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Then we must set a man to watch,
With a gay La-dee.
Suppose the man should fall asleep,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Suppose the man should fall asleep,
With a gay La-dee.
Then we must put a pipe in his mouth,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Then we must put a pipe in his mouth,
With a gay La-dee.
Suppose the pipe should fall and break,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Suppose the pipe should fall and break,
With a gay La-dee.
Then we must set a dog to watch,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Then we must set a dog to watch,
With a gay La-dee.
Suppose the dog should run away,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Suppose the dog should run away,
With a gay La-dee.
Then we must chain him to a post,
Dance o’er my Lady Lea;
Then we must chain him to a post,
With a gay La-dee.’
“I pray you, do not fail to observe in these verses, how singularly and happily the burthen of the song often falls in with the subject of the new line: though I am half inclined to think, that the whole ballad has been formed by many fresh additions, in a long series of years, and is, perhaps, almost interminable when received in all its different versions. Mr. Green, in his letter which I last quoted, remarks that, the stanzas I have repeated to you are ‘the introductory lines of 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 the Second, and who lived till nearly that of George the Second.’ Another Correspondent to the same Magazine, whose contribution, signed D, is inserted in the same volume, December, page 507, observes, that the ballad concerning London Bridge formed, in his remembrance, part of a Christmas Carol, and commenced thus: