Date: 1758

"They who have a good Constitution of Body, support Heats and Colds: and so they, who have a right Constitution of Soul, bear [the Attacks of] Anger, and Grief, and immoderate Joy, and the other Passions."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1759

"But why are Originals so few? not because the Writer's harvest is over, the great Reapers of Antiquity having left nothing to be gleaned after them; nor because the human mind's teeming time is past, or because it is incapable of putting forth unprecedented births."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1762, 1781

"Bear back, false Winchester, thy proffer'd Bliss, / Weigh Crowns and Kingdoms with a deed like this, / Far, far too light in Wisdom's eye they seem, / Nor shake the scale, while Reason holds the beam."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1763, 1770

"Yes, doubtless, steel'd--but still he show'd a heart, / As soft, as Cleopatra's softest part."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

Date: 1770

"Excursive thought" may "Stand still a moment, and by reason taught / Judge rightly, with strict eye thyself survey"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1777, 1780

"He made but little reply; but the impression sunk deep into his rancorous heart; every word in Edmund's behalf was like a poisoned arrow that rankled in the wound, and grew every day more inflamed."

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1784

"Ah! season of delight!--could aught be found / To soothe awhile the tortur'd bosom's pain, / Of Sorrow's rankling shaft to cure the wound, / And bring life's first delusions once again, / 'Twere surely met in thee!."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1788

"Of home! dear scene, whose ties can bind / With sacred force the human mind / That feels each little absence pain, / And lives but to return again / To that lov'd spot, however far, / Points, like the needle to its star; / That native shed which first we knew, / Where first the sweet affections ...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: December 1790

"A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; ...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1791, 1806

"Oh! horrid Night! / Thou prying Monitor confest! / Whose key unlocks the human breast, / And bares each avenue to mental sight!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)