Date: 1667

"Whose Mirrours are the crystal Brooks, / Or else each others Hearts and Looks."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1667

"In every Brook or Mirrour we can find /  Reflections of our face to be; / But a true Optick to present our Mind / We hardly get, and darkly see."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1733

Reason's "clear Mirror" can reflect the past actions and represent passions

— Masters, Mary (1694-1771)

Date: 1733, 1748

"Where thou [Memory] art not, the cheerless human mind / Is one vast void, all darksome, sad, and blind; / No trace of anything remains behind."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd, / How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude / Appears the painted Cheat."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1764

"Dead Letters, thus with Living Notions fraught, / Prove to the Soul the Telescopes of Thought"

— Grierson [née Crawley], Constantia (1704/5-1732)

Date: 1773

"Soaring though air to find the bright abode, / Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God, / We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, / And leave the rolling universe behind; / From star to star the mental optics rove, / Measure the skies, and range the realms above."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: 1785

"In thy mild rhetoric dwells a social love / Beyond my wild conceptions, optics false!/ Thro' which I falsely judg'd of polish'd life"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1788

"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)