Date: 1788

"His breast, where nobler passions burn, / In honest poverty, would spurn / That wealth, Oppression can bestow, / And scorn to wound a fetter'd foe."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"True courage in the unconquer'd soul / Yields to Compassion's mild controul; / As, the resisting frame of steel / The magnet's secret force can feel."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"Or, if where savage habit steels / The vulgar mind, one bosom feels / The sacred claim of helpless woe-- / If Pity in that soil can grow; / Pity! whose tender impulse darts / With keenest force on nobler hearts; / As flames that purest essence boast, / Rise highest when they tremble most."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"Ah, not alone of power possest / To check each virtue of the breast; / As when the numbing frosts arise / The charm of vegetation dies."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"His sway the harden'd bosom leads / To Cruelty's remorseless deeds; / Like the blue lightning when it springs / With fury on its livid wings, / Darts to its goal with baleful force, / Nor heeds that ruin marks its course."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"On Eloquence, prevailing art! / Whose force can chain the list'ning heart; / The throb of Sympathy inspire, / And kindle every great desire; / With magic energy controul / And reign the sov'reign of the soul!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1788

"She had a metaphysical turn, which inclined her to reflect on every object that passed by her; and her mind was not like a mirror, which receives every floating image, but does not retain them: she had not any prejudices, for every opinion was examined before it was adopted."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1789

"But what gay blossoms of luxuriant Spring, / With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwin'd, / Shall fabled Sylphs and fairy people bring, / As a just emblem of the lovely mind?"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"Nature on all sides showed a lovely scene, / And people's minds were, like the air, serene."

— Hands, Elizabeth (bap. 1746, d. 1815)

Date: 1789

"A passion like mine, makes the heart rebellious--it will love on--it will hope, in spite of the rules cold reason dictates"

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)