PREFACE
WHETHER Authors have some misgiving of the intrinsic value of their productions, and their consequent claim to public attention and patronage, and feel it necessary therefore to bespeak a favorable sentence on trial; or whether the thing is done merely to swell the book, I 5
cannot well say; but somehow, on taking up a new book, a preface is the first thing we look for; and I cannot see why I should be out of fashion in this respect. Mine shall not be very lengthy however. Instead (as is usually done by poets) of telling a long story about my not having had 10
an opportunity of receiving a classical, or any other education, and thus entreating the reader to be blind to my faults, I will only just tell him, that I am as fully aware as he is that this is all fudge, and a little beneath my dignity. I leave these matters to his own discrimination: if he is fit 15

to judge, he will judge of them by "internal evidence"; and, if he buy my book, and do not prevent others from doing likewise, his decision is of consequence to me.
     The few SONGS at the latter end are some of a contemplated series on subjects arising out of the peculiar

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circumstances of the Country, and are expected to be acceptable to the bulk of the young people of Upper Canada, for whose amusement they are especially intended.
     I may just observe, that the whole thing has been

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composed since about Christmas last, I not being aware, until then, that I possessed any of the germs of the Poet; and that there is more truth in what I hope is about to be read, than those not conversant with the political history of the working classes in England for the last fifteen 30

years may be inclined to suppose. Whether I shall try my hand at the craft again, I am not quite certain: that depends on the manner in which this attempt shall be received by—THE PAYMASTER.

                                                             JOHN NEWTON.

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ST. ANN’S, NELSON }
MARCH 14TH, 1846.