Date: 1782
"The pride of letter'd ignorance, that binds / In chains of error our accomplish'd minds, / That decks with all the splendour of the true, / A false religion, is unknown to you."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: August 1783
"Death broke at once the vital chain, / And free'd his soul the nearest way."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1783
"The enemy fight in chains, invisible chains, but heavy; / Their minds are fetter'd; then how can they be free, / While, like the mounting flame, / We spring to battle o'er the floods of death?"
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)
Date: 1784
"Had I the dread necessity explained, / That with resistless force my freedom chained; / Tore the sweet bands, by virtuous passion tied, / And stampt our constancy with parricide."
preview | full record— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)
Date: 1785
"If different religions be professed in the same country, and the minds of men remain unfettered and unawed by intimidations of law, that religion which is founded in maxims of reason and credibility, will gradually gain over the other to it."
preview | full record— Paley, William (1743-1805)
Date: 1785
"Heav'ns! of how cynnical a Nature / The school-taught Race of ALMA MATER! / Who, of cramp'd Mind and clouded Brain / Bind GENIUS in a Gothic Chain."
preview | full record— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)
Date: 1785
"While affection fond as fair, / Forms a chain of every hair, / A chain, which round the willing mind, / Sensibility shall bind."
preview | full record— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Date: 1785
"In fetters confined Our body complains, / Oppress'd is our mind , With heavier chains."
preview | full record— Wesley, Charles (1707-1788)
Date: 1786
"Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains."
preview | full record— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)
Date: 1787
"What force can free the mind that Vice has chain'd, / Or clear the current if the fountain's stain'd?"
preview | full record— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)