Date: 1732

"Heav'ns! what Ideas fill'd each mighty Mind! / Their Works appear'd the Mirrour of Mankind!"

— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)

Date: w. 1740, 1748

"Thirsting for Knowledge, but to know the right, / Thro' judgment's optick guide th' illusive sight, / To let in rays on Reason's darkling cell, / And Prejudice's lagging mists dispel."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Date: 1771

"Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd / To form that harmony of soul and face, / Where beauty shines the mirror of the mind."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1772-1781

What availed the songs of a "mighty mind, / With inward light irradiate, mirror-like / Receiv'd, and to mankind with ray reflex / The sov'reign Planter's primal work display'd?"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1779

The mind may be veiled in darkness

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"The shifts and turns, / The expedients and inventions multiform / To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms / Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,-- / To arrest the fleeting images that fill / The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, / And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off / ...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may be "enlighten'd from above"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"Oh! I'm sick to the soul, to see Music alone, / Stretch her negligent length on the Drama's gay throne; / Where Muses more honor'd by Wisdom should sit, / To adorn the heart's mirror, and fashion our wit"

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: w. 1746, 1797

"His youthful breast, by years mature refin'd, / May shine the mirror of thy blameless mind."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1815

The wavering motions of the mind are like "quivering light" reflected off a confined "crystal flood" in a brass cistern

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)