Date: 1786

"Like caterpillars dangling under trees / By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, / Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace / The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, / While every worm industriously weaves / And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves; / So numerous are the follie...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1789

"'Tis [the letter of the law] the birdlime of reason to fasten our senses."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1792

"Ah me! the passion that my soul misled / Was check'd, not conquer'd; buried, but not dead: / Now bursting from the grave, in evil hour, / It hastens to its prey with fiercer pow'r, / And, vulture-like, with appetite increas'd / It riots on the undiminish'd feast."

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)