Date: 1796

"He ponders on the world,--abhors the whole; / While black as night, his gloomy thought expands / O'er life's perplexing paths, and barren sands"

— Merry, Robert (1755-1798)

Date: 1796

"Reason's dying lamp / Scarce brighter burns than instinct in their breast"

— Bruce, Michael (1746-1767)

Date: 1796

"The effect [of wit on the mind] is strong,--because it's odd, / Like fire electric from a clod; / Or when fix'd air puts out a light, / Tho' vital makes it blaze more bright."

— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"But see how poor a wretch he is, how blind! / The Sun of Science, dawns not on his mind."

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"Some wretches shut their eyes to reason's light, / Their evil habits wantonly invite, / To headstrong passions yield without remorse, / Call each prevailing whim, their Hobby Horse, / And screen'd beneath the sanction of that name, / Freely indulge their vices without shame."

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"O hail, thou blest anticipated day! / Gild my young Muse with one enlightened ray: / So shall thy light each intellect refine, / Burn in each thought, and glow thro' ev'ry line.

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"Hail, happy dawn! thy glorious sun shall rise, / Beam on the dreary night of polar skies; / Chase the thick mists of ignorance away, / And on the darkest mind emit full day."

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: 1798 [1797?]

"If with big meaning pregnant Fancy teem'd; / If o'er each thought, the light of Genius beam'd; / If quick Perception new ideas found, / And lent to verse new luxuries of sound [...]"

— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)

Date: October 4, 1802

"Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth / A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud / Enveloping the Earth--"

— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Date: 1803

Genius may "separate the clouds by error spread, / Till all the gloom is vanquish'd, and the light / Of intellectual day wide-blazing streams"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)