Date: 1763

"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1765

"Warm in the raptures of divine desire, / Burst the soft chain that curbs th'aspiring mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1766

"Fancy leads the fetter'd senses / Captives to her fond controul; / Merit may have rich pretences, / But 'tis Fancy fires the soul."

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1766

"Far beyond the bonds of meaning / Fancy flies, a Fairy queen!"

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1766

Earthly pleasures are "Not meant by heav'n to perish unenjoy'd, / Or pass'd with scorn by superstitious pride; / Nor, grov'ling here, the brutal soul to chain, / Where happiness is still alloy'd with pain; / But there the soaring intellect to fix, / Where pain or sorrow ne'er with transport mix."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1767

"Yet, to the stoic apathy estrang'd, / Thou canst, with steady courage, probe to th' quick / The wound thou mean'st to cure; thou canst reprove / With all the sweet persuasion of esteem: / And give a momentary pang, to free / The worthy mind from its ignoble chain."

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1773

"But soon, alas! this holy calm is broke; / My soul submits to wear her wonted yoke; / With shackled pinions strives to soar in vain, / And mingles with the dross of earth again."

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

Date: 1773

"Now here, now there, the roving Fancy flies, / Till some lov'd objects strikes her wand'ring eyes, / Whose silken fetters all the senses bind, / And soft captivity involves the mind."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

Date: w. 1763, 1776

"By mercy prompted his correcting hand / Inflicts the stroke of salutary pain, / To check tyrannic Passions's wild demand, / And free our Reason from it's slavish chain."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1777

"Is there no Senator, whose soul disdains / To bear about his mind the golden chains / Of base Corruption?"

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)