Date: 1755
"Now Night her highest Noon ascends, / And o'er the Globe her Shades extends: / While all her shining Lamps of Light, / The Soul to solemn Thought invite."
preview | full record— Tollet, Elizabeth (1694-1754)
Date: 1755
"Oh let me now thy tender Mercy find, / With thy free Grace illuminate my Mind, / Let me no more the Slave of Passion be, / But turn my wand'ring Thoughts to Heav'n and thee."
preview | full record— Masters, Mary (1694-1771)
Date: March 1756
"The thought-kindling light, / Thy prime production, darts upon my mind / Its vivifying beams, my heart illumines, / And fills my soul with gratitude and Thee."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1758
"Let inward beauty charm the mental sight; / Let godlike Reason, beaming bright, / Chase far away each gloomy shade, / Till VIRTUE's heav'nly form display'd / Alone shall captivate my soul, / And her divinest love possess me whole!"
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: w. May, 1756; 1761
"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."
preview | full record— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)
Date: 1762-3
"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: w. 1739, 1762
Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1762
"Where, to the Beam of intellectual Day, / The genuine Charms of moral Beauty play: / With pleasing Force the strong Attractions move / Each finer Sense, and tune it into Love."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1762
"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1762
"'Till then [death], the Muse essays the tuneful Art, / To fix her moral Lesson on thy Heart, / Illume thy Soul with Virtue's brightest Flame, / And point it to that Heav'n from whence it came."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)