Date: 1762

"For a perfect Knowledge in these, and a proper Attention to Emphasis, will not only lead to, but, at last, actually produce what includes them all, such a masterly Elocution, as can hold the Passions captive, and surprize the Soul itself in its inmost Recesses."

— Buchanan, James (fl. 1753-1773)

Date: 1779

"Let me exhort ye then to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance: burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the chimney of hope, take from hence the bar of good resolution, break through the stone wall of despair, and all the strong holds in the dark entry of the v...

— Anonymous

Date: 1786

"Add to this, that, whenever you sell the liberty of a man, you have the power only of alluding to the body: the mind cannot be confined or bound: it will be free, though its mansion be beset with chains."

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1792

"Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, / Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain."

— Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)

Date: 1793

"For what is sleep, but temporary death; / Sealing up all the windows of the soul, / And binding ev'ry thought in torpid chains?"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796, 1806

"Ambition!--not that emulative zeal Which wings the tow'ring souls of godlike men! / But bold, oppressive, self-created pow'r, / That, trampling o'er the barrier of the laws, / And scattering wide the tender shoots of pity, / Strikes at the root of reason, and confines / Nature itself in bondage!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: November 12, 1816

"But what land, that poet ever sung, or enchanter swayed, can equal that, which, when the slave's foot touches, he becomes free--his prisoned soul starts forth, his swelling nerves burst the chain that enthrall'd him, and, in his own strength he stands, as the rock he treads on, majestic and secu...

— Morton, Thomas (1764-1838)