Date: 1782

"I was bewitched, I was infatuated! common sense was estranged by the seduction of a chimera; my understanding was in a ferment from the ebullition of my imagination!"

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

Date: 1782

"By pure exalted Sentiment she draws / From Judgment's steady voice no light applause."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"Man's heart had been impenetrably seal'd / Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field, / Had not his Maker's all-bestowing hand / Given him a soul"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"Have you shewn a jewel / Out of the cabinet of your rich mind / To lock it up again?"

— Dudley, Sir Henry Bate (1745-1824)

Date: 1783, 1785, 1789

"Indeed, the real seat of all superiority, even of manners, must be placed in the mind: dignified sentiments, superior courage, accompanied with genuine and universal courtesy, are always necessary to constitute the real gentleman; and where these are wanting, it is the greatest absurdity to thin...

— Day, Thomas (1748-1789)

Date: 1783

"To work, my hearts of oak, to work; here the sun is half an hour high, and not a stroke struck yet."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1784

"I love to weep, love the soft feast of grief, / Court mournful thoughts, nor ever wish relief;-- / Sadness I woo, yet still the phantom flies, / And joy seduces, whilst I ask for sighs."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1784

"Had I the dread necessity explained, / That with resistless force my freedom chained; / Tore the sweet bands, by virtuous passion tied, / And stampt our constancy with parricide."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

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: 1785

"Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)