Date: 1763

"Think but one hour, and, to thy Conscience led / By Reason's hand, bow down and hang thy head; / Think on thy private life, recal thy Youth, / View thyself now, and own with strictest truth, / That SELF hath drawn Thee from fair Virtue's way / Farther than Folly would have dar'd to stray, / And ...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1765

"Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray, / The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind, / And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray / Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1767, 1784

"So, when on some weighty truth / A beam of heav'nly light its lustre sheds, / To Reason's eye it looks supremely fair."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1770

"Excursive thought" may "Stand still a moment, and by reason taught / Judge rightly, with strict eye thyself survey"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: 1770

"Take HIM ye wretched for your only good; / Take HIM ye starving souls to be your food."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: 1771, 1776

"'Fancy enervates, while it sooths, the heart, / 'And, while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight: / 'To joy each heightening charm it can impart, / 'But wraps the hour of wo in tenfold night."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"And Reason now through Number, Time, and Space, / 'Darts the keen lustre of her serious eye, / 'And learns, from facts compared, the laws to trace, / 'Whose long progression leads to Deity."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1772-1781

"Fond Fancy's eye, / That inly gives locality and form / To what she prizes best, full oft pervades / Those hidden caverns, where pale chrysolites, / And glittering spars dart a mysterious gleam / Of inborn lustre, from the garish day / Unborrow'd."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1773

"How bright the scene to Fancy's eye appears, / Through the long perspective of distant years, / When this, this little group their country calls / From academic shades and learned halls, / To fix her laws, her spirit to sustain, / And light up glory through her wide domain!"

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1773

"O Wisdom! if thy soft controul / Can soothe the sickness of the soul, / Can bid the warring passions cease, / And breathe the calm of tender peace;-- / Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway, / And ever, ever will obey."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)