The sheet of broadside ballad that is passing away deserves a little attention before it disappears. It reveals to us the quality of song that commended itself to the uneducated. It shows us how the song proper has steadily displaced the ballad proper. It is surprising for what it contains, as well as for what it omits. Apparently in the latter part of this century the sole claim to admission is that words--no matter what they be--should be associated to a taking air. We find on the broadsheets old favourites of our youth--songs by Balfe, and Shield, and Hudson; but the Poet Laureate is unrepresented; even Dibdin finds but grudging admission. When we look at the stuff that is home-made, we find that it consists of two sorts of production--one, the ancient ballad in the last condition of wreck, cast up in fragments; and the other, of old themes worked up over and over again by men without a spark of poetic fire in their hearts. A century or two hence we shall have this rubbish collected and produced as the folk song of the English peasantry, just as we have had the black-letter ballads raked together and given to the world as the ballad poetry of the ancient English. The broadside ballad is at its last gasp. Every publisher in the country who was wont to issue these ephemerides has discontinued doing so for thirty or forty years. In London, in place of a score of publishers of these leaves, there are but three--Mr. Fortey, of Seven Dials; Mr. Such, of the Boro’; and Mr. Taylor, of Bethnal Green. As the broadside dies, it becomes purer. There are ballads in some of the early issues of a gross and disgusting nature. These have all had the knife applied to them, and nothing issues from the press of Mr. Fortey, Mr. Such, and Mr. Taylor which is offensive to good morals. Mr. Such, happily, has all his broadsides numbered, and publishes a catalogue of them; some of the earlier sheets are, however, exhausted, and have not been reprinted. It is but a matter of a few years and the broadside will be as extinct as the Mammoth and the Dodo, only to be found in the libraries of collectors. Already sheets that fetched a ha’penny thirty years ago are cut down the middle, and each half fetches a shilling. The garlands are worth more than their weight in gold. Let him that is wise collect whilst he may. X. Riddles.