Date: 1751, 1768

"When reason rules, what glory does ensue."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1752, performed 1772

"I flatter'd my poor soul that all its Fears / Were Grief's distemper'd coinage, that my Love / Rais'd causeless apprehensions, and at length / Edgar would quite forgive."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"(If shapes like his be but the fancy's coinage)"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"Steel then, ye Powers of heav'n, / Steel my firm soul with your own fortitude, / Free from alloy of passion."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

The soul may be "Snatch'd by the power of music from her cell / Of fleshly thraldom" and feel "herself upborn / On plumes of ecstasy"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1781

"Oh, I begin to take you--your days--the rusticated remains of a ruined Temple Critic--a smatterer of high life from the scenes of Cibber, which remain upon his imagination, as they do upon the stage, forty years after the real characters are lost"

— Burgoyne, John (1722-1792)

Date: April 17, 1795

"Like Britain's Monarch" an audience may "act [their] generous parts, /And fix [their] empire, in [actors] greatful hearts.

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: April 17, 1795

"At Hymen's altar claim the chain / That twines two willing hearts in one!"

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: 1797

A boy with the the divine gift of beauty may conquer "each heart he lists" nor needs Cupid's "shafts to aid his victories"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1797

" For, Cupid, well thou know'st, the tender soul, / That Poesy inspires, is very wax / To Beauty's piercing ray"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)