MIDNIGHT MUSINGS: BEING A COLLECTION OF POEMS N VARIOUS SUBJECTS.. THOUGHTS that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird MILTON, DEMERARA: PRINTED AT THE COURIER OFFICE, 18, SOUTH-STREET, PREFACE. IN offering to his fellow-Colonists a volume of Poems, principally composed among them, the Author would have been well pleased to have let them stand or fall by their own merit, had he been satisfied with the execution of what may be termed the mechanical part of the performance-which, as it is the least exalted, is undoubtedly the most tedious and irksome :-the revision and correction for the Press, of that which has been negligently composed in the first instance. This, however, with regard to Works (and especially Poetical ones) subject to public criticism, is more important than perhaps it appears to be; and the Author, in making his first appearance, feels a characteristic nervousness which has induced him to preface the Work with a few observations, intended as a propitiation for many errors and negligences, which he himself is most ready to admit may be fairly charged on the few Poems now published. And first, without meaning to compare himself in any other way with the lamented |