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!"

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

Date: 1785

"'Twixt shame and passion floats the struggling mind, / To Virtue now, and now to vice inclin'd, / This frowns refusal, that persuades to yield, / Till Reason falls, and Passion takes the field."

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

Date: 1786

"But if (which Pow'rs above prevent) / That iron-hearted carl, Want, / Attended, in his grim advances, / By sad mistakes, and black mischances"

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1786

"'While in his Breast he bears, to Fear unknown, / 'A rigid Heart of Iron or of Stone!"

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838); Moschus

Date: 1786

"With Iron Bosom, tho' the Beast he slew, / The Charms of melting Love Alcides knew!"

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838); Moschus

Date: 1786

Friendship " bade my stubborn Bosom feel, / And soften'd thus a Heart of Steel!"

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838); Moschus

Date: 1786

"Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd, / Points to new scenes that in succession pass / Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears, / And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye / A wider range o'er all her prospects take."

— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)

Date: 1786

"A festive glass the drooping mind requires, / His far-off phiz keen Fancy's eye descries"

— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)

Date: 1786, 1816

"In vain at glory gudgeon Boswell snaps-- / His mind's a paper kite--compos'd of scraps / Just o'er the tops of chimneys form'd to fly."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1786

The infant mind may (and should) be fed with "proper fare"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)