Date: 1743

"Of what Use is Reason then? Why, of the Use that a Window is to a Man in a Prison, to let him see the Horrors he is confined in; but lends him no Assistance to his Escape"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1745

"Off! Traitors! off! or my distracted Soul / Will burst indignant from this Jail of Nature! / To where she beckons yonder."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1756

"Oh, God of Sleep! arise, and spread / Thy healing vapours round my head; / To thy friendly mansions take, / My soul that burns, / Till he returns, / For whom alone I wish to wake."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"They little know mankind / Who doubt its [flattery's] operation: 'tis my key, / And opes the wicket of the human heart."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

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: 1759

"Oh! thou art ever faithful--on thy lips / Sits pensive silence, with her hallow'd finger / Guarding the pure recesses of thy mind."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: 1761

"While Frugi liv'd / Thy sorrows kept possession of my heart, / And Love receded from the stronger guest; / Now his dear image rises to my view / So piteously array'd, with such a train / Of tender thoughts assails this shatter'd frame, / That Reason quits her fort, and flies before, / To the las...

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1762

"Thy griefs pent up, have prey'd upon thy heart."

— Cradock, Joseph (1742-1826)

Date: 1762

"Avarice has canker'd their imprison'd minds, / And lust of gold has blinded them to justice."

— Cradock, Joseph (1742-1826)

Date: 1764

"I suppose, Gentlemen, my memory, or mind, to be a chest of drawers, a kind of bureau; where, in separate cellules, my different knowlege on different subjects is stor'd."

— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)