Date: March 22, 1796

"How should ye be but good, where all is fair, / And where the mirror of the mind reflects / Serenest beauty?"

— Southey, Robert (1774-1843)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"Her indulgent tenderness, the frankness of her temper, and my innate rising curiosity, soon removed all distance between us: like friends of an equal age, we freely conversed on every topic, familiar or abstruse; and it was her delight and reward to observe the first shoots of my young ideas."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1796

"John Bull, 'tis said, and 'tis most truly said, / Has evermore a windmill in his head: / Which still, as fashions, factions, fancies sway, / With every puff, is whiffled every way"

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: w. 1766, 1796

"Little minds / Do judge of great things, like the purblind gnat, / That deems a fly, a monster"

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: 1796

"[T]here is a Judge to whose all-seeing eye our inmost thoughts lie open"

— Colman, George, the younger (1762-1836)

Date: 1796

"Ay: ay: this is none of your modern paper skull'd authors--old Geoffery's head is sound"

— Reynolds, Frederick (1764-1841)

Date: 1796

"Yet on the youthful mind th' impression cast / Of ancient glory shall for ever last."

— Falconer, William (bap. 1732, d. 1770)

Date: 1796

"No drug, nor juice of all the acid tribe, / Can move the Tints, which Glassy Pores imbibe; / So no mean prejudice, no bribes, nor art, / Efface th' Impressions of an Upright Heart."

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: 1796

"Thus Books are intellectual Aliment drest / For every appetite of every guest."

— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)

Date: 1796

"Too well, fair youth! thy lib'ral heart he knew; / A heart to Nature's warm impressions true!"

— Falconer, William (bap. 1732, d. 1770)