Date: 1785

"He that attends to his interior self, [...] Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve / No unimportant, though a silent task."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The "eyesight of discovery" may be blinded by constraints

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Threads of politic and shrewd design" that charge the mind with meanings may be (or not, as it were) disentangled from "the puzzled skein"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"And the mind's poor infirmities dash'd from their throne, / Forgetting the weakness that lives in their own."

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"She can conquer a heart--that she wants sense to keep."

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"For spells may be said to exist in that tone, / Whose graces can conquer all hearts--but her own."

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

A mind may be like "clear amber, conden'd by stagnation," it may exhibit "the dirt it imbib'd in formation"

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"Like a beggar at law, whom no barrister blesses, / His mind lacks an agent to plead its distresses; / All his muscles rebel 'gainst judicious controul"

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

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"Oh! I'm sick to the soul, to see Music alone, / Stretch her negligent length on the Drama's gay throne; / Where Muses more honor'd by Wisdom should sit, / To adorn the heart's mirror, and fashion our wit"

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