Date: 1776-1789

"Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifi...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1774-1776, 1788, 1803

"From a stranger hand / Ah, what can infancy expect, when she / Whose essence was inwove with thine, whose life, / Whose soul thou didst participate, neglects / Herself in thee, and breaks the strongest seal / Which nature stamp'd in vain upon her heart"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1774-1776, 1788, 1803

"Well-skill'd / To form the growing soul, and on its young / And opening bud to fix the impression deep / Of every generous thought"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1777, 1793

"Your gentle hearts / To kind impressions yet susceptible, / Will amiably hear a friend's advice"

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1777, 1793

"Of one, who, warm with human passions, soft / To tenderest impressions, frequent rush'd / Precipitate into the tangling maze"

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1777, 1810

"The soul's impression they no longer share; / His soul is hovering round his distant fair."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1777

"To an injudicious and superficial eye, the best educated girl may make the least brilliant figure, as she will probably have less flippancy in her manner, and less repartee in her expression; and her acquirements, to borrow bishop Sprat's idea, will be rather 'enamelled than embossed'."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1778

"Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects, will be certain and definitive; and sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just, but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only: which will, always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Indeed, I could but ill support her former yearly visits to the respectable mansion at Howard Grove; pardon me, dear Madam, and do not think me insensible of the honour which your Ladyship's condescension confers upon us both; but so deep is the impression which the misfortunes of her mother hav...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"But I am happy to observe, that he seems to have made no impression upon your heart, and therefore a very little care and prudence may secure you from those designs which I fear he has formed."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)