Date: 1779

"Banish'd--robb'd of my country, and my name; / Yet they have left a mind defies their vengeance-- / Which, though these limbs were lock'd in bolts of steel, / And darkness wrapt these precious founts of light, / Would rise superior to their bounded power, / And scorn alike their fetters, and the...

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1792

"Curs'd lethargy of the soul! ... that chain'd my better judgement, cramp'd all my strength of mind--ruin'd all my prospects."

— Tytler, Alexander Fraser (1747-1813); Schiller (1759-1805)

Date: 1792

"I should be a pitiful bungler indeed, if I knew not yet how to tear a son from the heart of his father, were they link'd together with chains of iron."

— Tytler, Alexander Fraser (1747-1813); Schiller (1759-1805)

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: 1799

"Valour holds a woman's soul in far securer chains than Science."

— Dutton, Thomas (fl. 1770-1815); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1799

"I saw in you the heroism of an ancient Roman .... your chains then dropped from your wrists, and fixed my heart."

— Heron, Robert (c.1765-1807)

Date: 1799

"I saw you stand in chains before Pizarro; I heard you speak like an ancient Roman; and at that moment the chains glided from your hands to my heart."

— Plumptre, Anne (1760-1818); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1799

"What are, to me, the ties of kindred?--I'll burst those trammels of affection, bonds of the soul:--I never knew their force: Nature denied me the sweet play of the heart, and all its persuasive eloquence."

— Craven, Keppel (1779-1851); Schiller (1759-1805)