Date: w. May, 1756; 1761
"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."
preview | full record— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)
Date: 1761
"At length I wake to Reason and to thee; / Thy well-lov'd form, like the all-glorious Sun / After a gloom of horror dawns upon me, / And day breaks in on my benighted soul."
preview | full record— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)
Date: 1762-3
"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1763
"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: December, 1763; 1774
"Thus his own eyes the Bigot blinds, / To shut out light from human minds."
preview | full record— Lloyd, Robert (bap. 1733, d. 1764)
Date: 1763, 1765; 1766
"Powers that should spread in Reason's orient ray, / How are they darken'd, and debarr'd the day!"
preview | full record— Langhorne, John (1735-1779)
Date: 1766
"The 'wise' man, makes use of those means, that are most proper for his purpose; he conducts himself, by the light of reason."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1766
"'Infatuation' acts so strongly, as in some measure, to take away that reason, which is the light of the mind; and thus darkening it, leads a man into the grossest errors."
preview | full record— Trusler, John (1735-1820)
Date: 1767, 1784
"But if foul Passion, or distemper'd Pride, / Impede its search, or Phrenzy seize the brain, / Then Ignorance a gloomy darkness spreads, / Or Superstition, with mishapen forms, / Erects its savage empire in the mind."
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)
Date: 1771, 1806
"'My constant heart a lamp perpetual burns."
preview | full record— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)