Date: 1785

"'Twixt shame and passion floats the struggling mind, / To Virtue now, and now to vice inclin'd, / This frowns refusal, that persuades to yield, / Till Reason falls, and Passion takes the field."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1786

"But your humanity must ever be engraved on my heart."

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)

Date: 1786

"Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd, / Points to new scenes that in succession pass / Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears, / And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye / A wider range o'er all her prospects take."

— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)

Date: 1786

"A festive glass the drooping mind requires, / His far-off phiz keen Fancy's eye descries"

— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)

Date: 1786, 1816

"In vain at glory gudgeon Boswell snaps-- / His mind's a paper kite--compos'd of scraps / Just o'er the tops of chimneys form'd to fly."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1786

"Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains."

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1786

"You confound their abilities by the severity of their servitude: for as a spark of fire, if crushed by too great a weight of incumbent fuel, cannot be blown into a flame, but suddenly expires, so the human mind, if depressed by rigorous servitude, cannot be excited to a display of those facultie...

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1786

"From that awful period, almost every expectation is forlorn: the heart is left unguarded: its great protector is no more: the vices therefore, which so long encompassed it in vain, obtain an easy victory: in crouds they pour into the defenceless avenues, and take possession of the soul: there is...

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1786

"If at this recital his indignation should arise, let him consider it as the genuine production of nature; that she recoiled at the horrid thought, and that she applied instantly a torch to his breast to kindle his resentment."

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1786

"Nay, with every other person 'tis the same thing--If we are stuffed into a coach, with a little chattering pert Miss, "Oh dear, Mr. Anthony Euston, you must not ride backwards, here is room for you on this seat--and Mr. Euston, I know, will like one seat as well as another"--and then am...

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)