Date: 1777, 1810

"And oft the bard's elastic mind / To lighter images inclined; / In concord with Anacreon's measure, / Courts the jovial gods of pleasure."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1777, 1810

"Well-pleased, in fancy he surveys, / With fancy's mimick tint pourtrays / The fate elysian of the swain, / Who, stranger to his nymph's disdain, / Feels the true zest of Cupid's reign, / His lasting joys enhanced by momentary pain."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1778

" In thee, by art, the demon stands confest, / But nature on thy soul has stamped the god."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: 1778, 1804

"But when that seal is first imprest, / When the young heart its pain shall try, / From the soft, yielding, trembling breast, / Oft seems the startled soul to fly."

— Langhorne, John (1735-1779)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The heat of Milton's mind might be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser parts."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"An accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study and exalted by imagination."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1780, 1781, 1788

"Two passions there by soft contention please, / The love of martial Fame, and learned Ease: / These friendly colours, exquisitely join'd, / Form the enchanting picture of thy mind."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)