Date: w. 1766, 1768

"And reason fixed her empire in my breast."

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1768

"Hope and fear alternate rising, / Strive for empire o'er my heart."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: 1768

"When the situation is, what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so: you thank Fortune, continued she--you had reason--the heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent notices of it to the brain to reverse th...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1769

One may gain "absolute empire over the mind" of another

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1769

"And still my soul they [cares] hold in pain, / Their cruel empire to maintain."

— Fergusson, Robert (1750-1774)

Date: 1770

The master-passion may be concealed "but on great occasions,... It will break forth, and loudly tell the world / What fermentation often works the soul"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1770

"This Night we'd fix her [the Muse of Comedy's] Empire in your Hearts."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1770, 1806

"Nor pride nor fickleness could claim / The empire of his mind."

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: 1770

"Thus far we have endeavoured to distinguish and ascertain the separate provinces of Reason and Common Sense. Their connection and mutual dependence, and the extent of their respective jurisdictions, we now proceed more particularly to investigate."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)