Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"These flattering scenes / To this neglected labour court my song; / Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task / To paint the finest features of the mind, / And to most subtile and mysterious things / Give colour, strength, and motion."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Call now to mind what high capacious powers / Lie folded up in man; how far beyond / The praise of mortals, may the eternal growth / Of nature to perfection half divine, / Expand the blooming soul?"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!) / The living fountains in itself contains / Of beauteous and sublime."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Not so the moral species, nor the powers / Of genius and design; the ambitious mind / There sees herself: by these congenial forms / Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act / She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd / Her features in the mirror."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Yet more: her honours where nor beauty claims, / Nor shews of good the thirsty sense allure, / From passion's power alone our nature holds / Essential pleasure."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Let the scene / Paint in thy fancy the primæval seat / Of man."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Thus ambition grasps / The empire of the soul."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Such then is the abode / Of folly in the mind; and such the shapes / In which she governs her obsequious train."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Though the light / Of truth slow-dawning on the inquiring mind, / At length unfolds, through many a subtile tie, / How these uncouth disorders end at last / In public evil!"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone / To which the new-born mind's harmonious powers / At first were strung?"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)