Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"The government of Head and Heart soon chang'd, / All former plans of thinking were derang'd; / Cupid's fond garrison was put to route, / Hypothesis march'd in, and Love march'd out."

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: 1799

"A country is only a family on a larger scale; and transient, indeed, must that unanimity be, when inclination is law, and the various passions of the mind are suffer'd to run riot"

— West, Matthew (d. 1814); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1805

"Alas! when ev'ry Muse is fled, / How wretched He who writes for bread! / Who, when the joyous years are flown, / And Reason totters on her throne, / And Fancy fails, and Nature tires, / And Fame herself no more inspires, / And ev'n the sweet return of Spring / No more can make the Poet sing, / T...

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

Date: 1807

"Yes, 't is too late,--now Reason guides / The mind, sole judge in all debate."

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Date: 1809

"Still may she [Fancy] rule the manly mind; / Her sweetest magic still impart / To soften, not subdue, the heart: / Still may she warm the chosen breast, /Not as the sovereign, but the guest."

— Bowles, William Lisle (1762-1850)

Date: 1810

"Had Bethlehem's star, of humble swains the guide; / Of souls, unclouded with pedantick pride; / On thee benighted, beamed, with friendly ray, / With all the light of evangelick day; / Ideas, in thy brain, had held no dance / Of anarchy, thou citizen of France!"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)