Date: 1760

"Attend all ye Fair, and I'll tell ye the Art / To bind every Fancy with ease in your Chains, / To hold in soft Fetters the conjugal Heart, / And banish from Hymen his Doubts and his Pains."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: w. 1764, published 1820

"Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined, / Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: December 6, 1765

"Then fly from Shape to Shape, / Yet hope not to escape, / My Chains enclose your Heart."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1767

"Beauty, ye fair, may forge the lover's chain; / But the mind's charms your empire must maintain."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: 1771

"But, Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and to virtue nothing but my wishes and my sighs."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1774

"The nymph, who in my bosom reigns, / With such full force my heart enchains, / That nothing ever can impair / The empire she possesses there."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

Date: 1775

"Yet--yet--perhaps your high respect alone for this solemn compact has fettered your inclinations, which else had made worthier choice."

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)

Date: 1778

"Why, my sweet one, you are all power, all a goddess; and you hold my heart enslaved in the chains of immortal love."

— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)

Date: 1780

"Generous Britain scorns to bind, / In servile chains, the freeborn mind."

— Pilon, Frederick (1750-1788)

Date: February 24, 1777; 1781

"She is the deceitful sorceress who now holds your husband's heart in bondage."

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)