Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 1, 1845, vol. 1, no. 5, p. ??

[page 78, column 1, continued:]

THE BOOK OF BRITISH BALLADS. New York James W. Judd & Co., New World Press.

This is a reprint from Mr. Hall's illustrated edition, with a very sem. Bible and straight forward introduction by Park Benjamin. The Ballads are fifty-two in number; some of them, but not all, the best in the language. Mr. Hall's book was a very costly one, and probably the best specimen of illustration in wood cuts ever published in England; and we have no doubt but that a republication of the prints would have been profitable here. It is the designs, more than the cuts, which make the high cost of illustrated books, and as these could have been got for nothing, we regret that the experiment was not tried of publishing a fac simile. The book is a valuable one as it is, and we are glad to learn that the Editor has found it a profitable one.