Date: 1779, 1781
"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1781
"Her teeming Thoughts with bright Conceptions glow, / Ideas crowd, and Lines spontaneous flow."
preview | full record— Keate, George (1729-1797)
Date: 1781
"He proceeded throughout his life to tread the same steps on the same circle; always applauding his past conduct, or at least forgetting it, to amuse himself with phantoms of happiness which were dancing before him, and willingly turned his eyes from the light of reason, when it would have discov...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1782
"Let Critic Reason all her light diffuse / O'er the wide empire of this injur'd [Epic] Muse"
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Date: 1782
"Where'er that Parent of engaging thought, / Warm Sensibility, like light, has taught / The bright'ning mirror of the mind to shew / Nature's reflected forms in all their glow."
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Date: 1782
One may have a mind "Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way"
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1782
"I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?"
preview | full record— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)
Date: 1782
"David, whose heart and affections were naturally of the first kind (and who indeed had experienced blessings without number) pours fourth the grateful sentiments of his enraptured soul in the sweetest modulations of pathetic oratory;--the tender mercies of the Almighty are not less to many of hi...
preview | full record— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)
Date: 1782
"Such a research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional aspirations--till we poure...
preview | full record— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)
Date: 1783
" And when thou yields to night thy wide domain, / Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain."
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)