Date: 1776-1789

"The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to secure that important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776

"Our sensations would be no better than the fleeting pictures of a moving object on a camera obscura, which leave not the least vestige behind them."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: 1777

"Her shatter'd fancy, like a mirror broken, / Reflects no single image just and true, / But many false ones."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: 1777

"Parents may, perhaps, paint it to themselves: they may see (through the mirror of a sympathetic fancy) the poor widow receiving her child from the healing hand of the prophet--a child fresh blooming in the beauties of a second birth."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1778

"So steht unser Körper zwischen Seele und der übrigen Welt in der Mitte, Spiegel der Wirkungen von beiden. [Thus our body stands between soul and ambient world, in the middle, mirror of the effect of both.]"

— Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph (1742-1799)

Date: March, 1778

"An antient philosopher indeed, full of real or pretended honesty, declared it to be his wish that there were a window in his breast that every body might see the integrity and purity of his thoughts. It would be truly be very pretty and amusing if our bodies were transparent, so that we could se...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1778

"How then can we represent, by a sensible image, the mind as a theatre to its own actings? Let us conceive a spacious saloon, in which our thoughts and passions exert themselves, and let its walls be encrusted with mirrour, for the purpose of reflection, in the same manner that rooms in voluptuou...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1778

"Renown'd ARCADIA, fam'd by Grecian bards, / In fancy's mirror strikes th' enraptur'd eye; / The pastures green replete with lowing herds, / Where brousing flocks, and careless shepherds lie."

— Graham, Charles (1750 ca.-1796 fl.)

Date: 1779

The mind may be veiled in darkness

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1779

"Our affections are indeed the medium through which we may be said to survey ourselves, and every thing else; and whatever be our inward frame, we are apt to perceive a wonderful congeniality in the world without us"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)