Date: 1786
"Like caterpillars dangling under trees / By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, / Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace / The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, / While every worm industriously weaves / And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves; / So numerous are the follie...
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1787
"Your heavy fat, I will maintain, / Is perfect birdlime of the brain; / And, as to goldfinches the birdlime clings-- / Fat holds ideas by the legs and wings."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1787
"Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts, / Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets-- / Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats, / That would have chirp'd away like linnets."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1788
"What glittering adders lurk to sting the mind!"
preview | full record— Richardson, Joseph (1755-1803)
Date: 1788
"Not that unlicens'd monster of the crowd, / Whose roar terrific bursts in peals so loud, / Deaf'ning the ear of Peace: fierce Faction's tool; / Of rash Sedition born, and mad Misrule; / Whose stubborn mouth, rejecting Reason's rein, / No strength can govern, and no skill restrain."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1788
"Thou, who, for noble faults like these, too cold, / Whose vices n'er aspire, but stoop to gold, / That groveling passion of the sordid breast, / Like Aaron's serpent swallowing up the rest."
preview | full record— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)
Date: 1788
"Who for such perishable gaudes would put / A yoke upon his free unbroken spirit, / And gall himself with trammels and the rubs / Of this world's business; so he might stand clear / Of judgment and the tax of idleness / In that dread audit, when his mortal hours / (Which now with soft and silent ...
preview | full record— Crowe, William (1745-1829)
Date: 1788
"While, seeking pleasures, and avoiding pains, / Will whips, or curbs, as reason holds the reins."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1789
"'Tis [the letter of the law] the birdlime of reason to fasten our senses."
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"Bid Syren Hope resume her long lost part, / And chase the vulture Care--that feeds upon the heart."
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)