Date: w. 1780, 1792

"Blest be the tribute of those tears, that start / From Friendship's eye, the mirrors of the heart."

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)

Date: 1792

"The imagination becomes a camera obscura, only with this difference, that the camera represents objects as they really are; while the imagination, impressed with the most beautiful scenes, and chastened by rules of art, forms it's pictures, not only from the most admirable parts of nature; but i...

— Gilpin, William (1724-1804)

Date: 1793

"How can you induce him to be dissatisfied with his present acquisitions, while every other person assures him that his accomplishments are admirable and his mind a mirror of sagacity?"

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1793

"In fancy's mirror dreadful scenes appear, / Design'd by doubt, and magnified by fear, / There some gay female, frivolous and vain, / Artfully forms the captivating chain; / Makes him the slave of passion and caprice, / Perverts his principles, and wounds his peace."

— Burrell [née Raymond, later Clay], Sophia, Lady Burrell (1750-1802)

Date: 1793

"To paint th' ecstatic tumult of their souls, / The rapture of deliverance from death / Thus threatenting, and the mutual joys of safety, / Description aims not, for too weak her power, / Too faint her colours: diffident she points / To fancy's faithful mirror, and then drops / Her useless pencil."

— Kett, Henry (1761-1825)

Date: 1794

"Of the world he seemed to know nothing; for he believed well of all mankind, and this opinion gave him the reflected image of his own heart."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

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: 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

"An absent smile, and a few faint acknowledgments of her goodness were all she could return: Eugenia abandoned when she might have been served, Edgar contemning when he might have been approving---these were the images of her mind, which resisted entrance to all other."

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

Date: April 20, 1796

"Oh! that superior mind is gone for ever! / --Yet still, thus ruin'd, like a broken mirror, / It gives a perfect image in each fragment!"

— Lee, Sophia (bap. 1750, d. 1824)