Date: 1770
A judge may sit serene "Above all mists of passion"
preview | full record— Armstrong, John (1708/9-1779)
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: 1785
"From shadows thinner than the fleeting night / That floats along the vale, or haply seems / To wrap the mountain in its hazy vest, / (Which the first sun-beam dissipates in air.) / How dost thou conjure monsters which ne'er mov'd / But in the chaos of thy frenzied brain!"
preview | full record— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Date: 1787
"Fat is foul weather--dims the fancy's sight"
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Like a snow-ball, the mind, fraught with peace in its prime, / Moves swiftly adown the steep shelvings of Time; / Accumulates filth from Society's sons, / And strengthens and hardens its coat as it runs; / Till habit on habit is negligent laid, / And the object appears motley, vile, and ill-made...
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)