Date: 1765

"Mere Affectation vainly would assert / A steady, lasting empire o'er the heart"

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1765

"When Reason, on her dictatorial throne, / Argues and pleads, with undecisive tone; / Thy rhetoric of sound, beyond her aid, / Thy lyre-breath'd strains of language can persuade."

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: 1765, 1770

"Till mighty conscience, whose prevailing call / Opes the dread volume of her laws to all."

— Wodhull, Michael (1740-1816)

Date: 1765, 1770

"When of old / Arcadia's peaceful shepherds uncontroul'd / Their ranging flocks thro' boundless pastures drove, / Or tun'd their pipes beneath the myrtle grove, / Their laws on brazen tablets unimprest / Were deeply grav'd on each ingenuous breast, / No proud Vicegerent of Astrea reign'd, / Astre...

— Wodhull, Michael (1740-1816)

Date: 1766

"Far beyond the bonds of meaning / Fancy flies, a Fairy queen!"

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1766

"Wisdom, which men with so much pain, / With so much weariness attain, / May in a little moment quit, / And abdicate the throne of Wit, / And leave, a vacant seat, the brain, / For Folly to usurp and reign."

— Lloyd, Evan (1734-1776)

Date: 1766

Melancholy may "round [one's] heart erect [her] ebon throne"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1766

"Sweet friendship in the heart confirms her throne"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1767

"Instant my Sense return'd, restor'd and whole, / To re-possess its empire of the soul. / So, when o'er Phoebus low-hung clouds prevail, / Sleep on each hill, and sadden ev'ry dale; / Sudden, up-springing from the north, invades / A purging wind, which first disturbs the shades; / Thins the black...

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

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."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)