Date: 1785

"I was surpriz'd, taken unawares, passion ran away with me like an unbroke horse: but I have got him under now; I can govern him with a twine of thread."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1786

"Like caterpillars dangling under trees / By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, / Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace / The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, / While every worm industriously weaves / And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves; / So numerous are the follie...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1787

"Your heavy fat, I will maintain, / Is perfect birdlime of the brain; / And, as to goldfinches the birdlime clings-- / Fat holds ideas by the legs and wings."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1787

"Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts, / Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets-- / Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats, / That would have chirp'd away like linnets."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1788

"What glittering adders lurk to sting the mind!"

— Richardson, Joseph (1755-1803)

Date: 1788

"Thou, who, for noble faults like these, too cold, / Whose vices n'er aspire, but stoop to gold, / That groveling passion of the sordid breast, / Like Aaron's serpent swallowing up the rest."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1788

"Who for such perishable gaudes would put / A yoke upon his free unbroken spirit, / And gall himself with trammels and the rubs / Of this world's business; so he might stand clear / Of judgment and the tax of idleness / In that dread audit, when his mortal hours / (Which now with soft and silent ...

— Crowe, William (1745-1829)

Date: 1788

"While, seeking pleasures, and avoiding pains, / Will whips, or curbs, as reason holds the reins."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1789

"'Tis [the letter of the law] the birdlime of reason to fasten our senses."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"While Vanity unveils her whiffling flags, / Her glittering trinkets, and her tawdry rags-- / Spreads spangled nets, and fills her philter'd bowl, / To fix each Sense, and fascinate the Soul-- / Her birdlime twigs contrived with such sly Art, / That while they tangle thoughts, they trap the heart...

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)