But with years the Newgate Calendar also declined, and at last it has
followed other dead literatures into the night.
Meanwhile the broadside had enjoyed an unbroken and prosperous career.
Up and down London, up and down England, hurried the Patterer or Flying
Stationer. There was no murder, no theft, no conspiracy, which did not
tempt the Gutter Muse to doggerel. But it was not until James Catnach
came up from Alnwick to London (in 1813), that the trade reached the top
of its prosperity. The vast sheets, which he published with their scurvy
couplets, and the admirable picture, serving in its time for a hundred
executions, have not lost their power to fascinate. Theirs is the aspect
of the early woodcut; the coarse type and the catchpenny headlines are
a perpetual delight; as you unfold them, your care keeps pace with your
admiration; and you cannot feel them crackle beneath your hand without
enthusiasm and without regret. He was no pedant--Jemmy Catnach; and
the image of his ruffians was commonly as far from portraiture, as
his verses were remote from poetry. But he put together in a roughly
artistic shape the last murder, robbery, or scandal of the day. His
masterpieces were far too popular to live, and if they knew so vast a
circulation as 2,500,000 they are hard indeed to come by. And now the
art is wellnigh dead; though you may discover an infrequent survival in
a country town. But how should Catnach, were he alive to-day, compete
with the Special Edition of an evening print?
The decline of the Scoundrel, in fact, has been followed by the
disappearance of chap-book and broadside.
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