Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788
"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1788
"Seize! seize! the glowing images that pass / Like transient shadows o'er the mimic glass!"
preview | full record— Whalley, Thomas Sedgwick (1746-1828)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Oh! I'm sick to the soul, to see Music alone, / Stretch her negligent length on the Drama's gay throne; / Where Muses more honor'd by Wisdom should sit, / To adorn the heart's mirror, and fashion our wit"
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"Immortal Blooms! surpassing Eden's kind, / Where Beauty shines the mirror of the Mind, / And rises fairer from the waste of Time, / To sky-born Lusture in the Heav'nly Clime."
preview | full record— Colvill, Robert (d. 1788)
Date: w. 1789, 1804
"Heav'n's pure Word would prompt Affection win, / And purge the Soul from all polluting Sin; / Till, like a faithful mirror Man would shine, / By Wisdom polish'd, and by Grace, divine."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1790
"Or novelty, fair pleasure's youthful queen, / Gives fresh allurements to each splendid scene, / To these, in fancy's varying mirror shown, / Amusement charms with beauties not its own."
preview | full record— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)
Date: 1790
"And o'er Imagination's gloomy glass, / Despair's mute sons like Banquo's visions pass"
preview | full record— Merry, Robert (1755-1798)
Date: 1790
"Indeed in the gross and complicated mass of human passions and concerns, the primitive rights of men undergo such a variety of refractions and reflections, that it becomes absurd to talk of them as if they continued in the simplicity of their original direction."
preview | full record— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Date: 1791
"LORD TRIMBLESTOWN. 'True, Sir. As the ladies love to see themselves in a glass; so a man likes to see himself in his journal.' ... BOSWELL. "And as a lady adjusts her dress before a mirror, a man adjusts his character by looking at his journal.'"
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1792
"As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, / Long on the wave reflected lustres play; / Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned / Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind."
preview | full record— Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)