Date: 1782

"Peace be to those (such peace as earth can give,) / Who live in pleasure, dead even while they live; / Born capable indeed of heavenly truth, / But down to latest age from earliest youth, / Their mind a wilderness through want of care, / The plough of wisdom never entering there."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1783

"Weeds in abundance spring up in a piece of ground which is neglected; -- so do naughty dispositions in an uncultivated mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784, 1804

"When this is the case the hedge (to our feelings) is broken down, and we lie exposed to every temptation; as says the Psalmist--'Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they that pass by the way do pluck her?' Psal. lxxx. 12"

— Huntington, William (1745-1813)

Date: 1784

The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours / Smil'd on the rugged path I'm doom'd to tread, / And still with sportive hand has snatch'd wild flowers, / To weave fantastic garlands for my head: / But far, far happier is the lot of those / Who never learn'd her dear delusive art; / Which, while i...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1784

"Not death itself thine empire can destroy; / Towards thee, even then, we turn the languid eye; / Still trust in thee to bid our memory bloom, / And scatter roses round the silent tomb."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1784

"Till with care the garden of the mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784

"As a piece of ground which is negligently cultivated, produces abundance of noxious weeds, so in the soul of an indolent man over-run with numberless vicious passions."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1785

"Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul, / When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed, / Opes all the glories of the mental world, / Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune / The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk / Of feeble fancy, bid idea live, / Woo the abstracted spirit form i...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

Prejudice may take "deeper root" in "men of stronger minds"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Learning may grow beneath Disciplines care, "a thriving and vigorous plant"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)