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...

— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)

Date: 1773, 1778

"The Passions there embody'd throng, / On mental Pinions, swift, and strong, / In Robes array'd of various Fire."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1779

"Sorrow may well possess the mind / That feeds where thorns and thistles grow"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1779

"Not Man, but thriftless Nature, be accused, / Who to seductions left our minds a prey-- / --Nay more, who doth herself ensnare us; / Hath hung us round with senses exquisite, / Hath planted in our hearts resistless passions, / The first to weaken, and the last to war / On poor, defenceless, nake...

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779

"My mind, with wild contending passions torn, / Now, like a hart by worrying dogs forsook, / Sinks into apathy."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779

"Mean time, Editha send; some secret grief / Preys on her mind, and fain I would relieve / Her bosom'd anguish."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779, 1781

"When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swoln with rain rushes from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either case, produces a simile; the mind is impr...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seld...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The good and evil of Eternity are too ponderous for the wings of wit; the mind sinks under them in passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble adoration."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1780

"In vain my fetter'd thoughts attempt to fly / And weakly fluttering mean the distant sky!"

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)