"Songs! Songs! Songs! Beautiful songs! Love songs; Newest songs! Old songs! Popular songs! Songs, _Three Yards a Penny!_" was a "standing dish" at the "Catnach Press," and Catnach was the Leo X. of street publishers. And it is said that he at one time kept a fiddler on the premises, and that he used to sit receiving ballad writers and singers, and judging of the merits of any production which was brought to him, by having it sung then and there to some popular air played by his own fiddler, and so that the ballad-singer should be enabled to start at once, not only with the new song, but also the tune to which it was adapted. His broad-sheets contain all sorts of songs and ballads, for he had a most catholic taste, and introduced the custom of taking from any writer, living or dead, whatever he fancied, and printing it side by side with the productions of his own clients. Catnach, towards the latter part of his time and in his threefold capacity of publisher, compositor, and poet, was in the habit of taking things very easy, and always appeared to the best advantage when in his printing office, or stationed behind the ricketty counter which for a number of years had done good service in the shop in Monmouth-court. In this uncongenial atmosphere, where the rays of the sun are seldom or never seen, Jemmy was as happy as a prince. "A poor man's home is his castle," so says an old proverb, and no one could have been prouder than he was when despatching to almost every town in the kingdom some specialty in the printing department. He naturally had a bit of a taste for old ballads, music, and song writing; and in this respect he was far in advance of many of his contemporaries. To bring within the reach of all, the standard and popular works of the day, had been the ambition of the elder Catnach; whilst the son was, _nolens volens_, incessant in his endeavours in trying to promulgate and advance, not the beauty, elegance, and harmony which pervades many of our national airs and ballad poety, but very often the worst and vilest of each and every description--in other words, those most suitable for street sale. His stock of songs was very like his customers, diversified. There were all kinds, to suit all classes. Love, sentimental, and comic songs were so interwoven as to form a trio of no ordinary amount of novelty. At ordinary times, when the Awfuls and Sensationals were flat, Jemmy did a large stroke of business in this line.