Hatton was responsible for re-editing the first two volumes of "Songs of England", an influential published collection which helped to establish a canon of English song with accompaniments, and cumulatively ran to three volumes under the later editorship of Eaton Faning. Hatton remarked, 'I have culled the choicest of the old ditties... The names of Purcell, Arne, Shield, Dibdin, Horn and Bishop are household words, and no English collection would be complete which did not contain the best songs of these composers... New symphonies and accompaniments have been written to more than fifty of the old songs.' His selection also drew substantially on Chappell's "Popular Music of Olden Time", in which many of the accompaniments were rewritten by George Alexander Macfarren, and contrasted with Hullah's "Song Book" of 1866, in which only the unaccompanied melodies were given. He also edited the companion volume of "Songs of Ireland", with J.L. Molloy, a volume of Comic songs, and a volume of the songs of Robert Schumann, for Boosey & Co.