Date: 1789

"Far nobler prize my heart constrains, / Yielding to soft controul; / Far other beauty binds in chains / The magnet of my soul."

— Colvill, Robert (d. 1788)

Date: 1791

"Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows; they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1791

"His supposed orthodoxy here cramped the vigorous powers of his understanding. He was confined by a chain which early imagination and long habit made him think massy and strong, but which, had he ventured to try, he could at once have snapt asunder."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1799

"I saw in you the heroism of an ancient Roman .... your chains then dropped from your wrists, and fixed my heart."

— Heron, Robert (c.1765-1807)

Date: 1808

"With active force the comprehensive mind / Breaks custom's chains and prejudice's ties, / And wide in sportive curves unbounded flies."

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1808

"Draw close those ties, so fine and yet so strong, / That gently lead the willing soul along, / Nor crush beneath oppression's iron rod / The kindred image of the parent God; / Nor think that rigour's galling chains can bind / The native force of the superior mind."

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)