Date: 1775
"What fancied zone can circumscribe the Soul, / Who, conscious of the source from whence she springs, / By Reason's light on Resolution's wings, / Spite of her frail / companion, dauntless goes / O'er Libya's deserts and through Zembla's snows? "
preview | full record— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Date: 1775
"How like a wanton lamb that careless play'd, / The shepherd and the fold forgotten quite, / My vagrant soul, in search of vain delight, / Many long years from her true Shepherd stray'd!"
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: 1778
The heart like a bird to its nestling will fly, / And when by the weight of a parent its bending, / Yet wishes while constant to break and to die. / Like a bird in a snare, of its freedom bereft, / Still hoping and wishing releasement again, / 'Till clos'd in the cage the flutterer is left / To p...
preview | full record— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)
Date: 1782
"Pleasure, the rambling Bird! the painted Jay! / May snatch the richest seeds of Verse away; / Or Indolence, the worm that winds with art / Thro' the close texture of the cleanest heart, / May, if they haply have begun to shoot, / With partial mischief wound the sick'ning root; / Or Avarice, the ...
preview | full record— Hayley, William (1745-1820)
Date: 1785
"BOSWELL. 'But, sir,'tis like walking up and down a hill; one man will naturally do the one better than the other. A hare will run up a hill best, from her fore-legs being short; a dog down.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, sir; that is from mechanical powers. If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that ma...
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1788
"Pensive, yet always kind; melancholy, and at times visibly unhappy; yet ever gentle, considerate, and attentive to me; always ready to blame himself for yielding to that despondence which he cannot without an effort conquer; trying to alleviate the anguish of my mind by subduing that which frequ...
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: w. 1789, 1804
"While Vanity unveils her whiffling flags, / Her glittering trinkets, and her tawdry rags-- / Spreads spangled nets, and fills her philter'd bowl, / To fix each Sense, and fascinate the Soul-- / Her birdlime twigs contrived with such sly Art, / That while they tangle thoughts, they trap the heart...
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)