Date: 1785

"To holy Solitude I flew, / And bade the Muse her sympathy prepare! / There closeted with Thought, / The brain its shapeless travail wrought!"

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1785

"He conjectured, that the soul is seated in a small gland in the brain, called the pineal gland: That there, as in her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits; and that sh...

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1785

When Reason dwells in the heart it is "Wisdom's cell"

— Lovibond, Edward (bap. 1723, d. 1775)

Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792

"Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd / (A very apt allusion to my mind)."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

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: 1786

"'Tis thy pure spirit warms my Anna's mind. / Beams thro' the pensive softness of her form, / And holds its altar--on her spotless heart!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1787

"But let me give his m*****y a hint, / Fresh from my brain's prolific mint."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1787

"Again, when some desires retire, there are others akin to them, which grow up, and through inattention to the father's instructions, become both many and powerful, draw towards intimacies among themselves, and generate a multitude, seize the citadel or the soul of the youth, finding it evacuated...

— Adams, John (1735-1826)

Date: 1788

"I would not hear / Aught else disturb the silent reign of death, / Save the dull ticking of a lazy clock. / That calls me home, and leads the pious soul / Through mazes of reflection, till she feels / For whom and why she lives"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1788

"She knew none of the inhabitants of the vast city to which she was going: the mass of buildings appeared to her a huge body without an informing soul."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)