Date: 1735-6

"The steel of Brutus burst the grosser bonds / By Cæsar cast o'er Rome; but still remain'd / The soft enchanting fetters of the mind, / And other Cæsars rose."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1736

"To live without Restraint, is to live indeed, cry'd she, and I no longer wonder, that the free Mind finds it so difficult to yield to those Fetters, Priests and Philosophers would bind it in, and which were never forged by, nor are consistent with Reason."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1737

"Brave Souls when loos'd from this ignoble Chain / Of Clay, and sent to their own Heav'n again, / From Earth's gross Orb on Virtue's Pinions rise / In Æther wanton, and enjoy the Skies."

— Baker, Henry (1698-1774)

Date: 1738

"Happy, he who can unbind / The Chains that clog the fetter'd Mind!"

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

Date: January 1739

"I know that the fear of the civil magistrate is as strong a restraint as any of iron, and that I am in as perfect safety as if he were chain'd or imprison'd."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: January 1739

"Here is a connected chain of natural causes and voluntary actions; but the mind feels no difference betwixt them in passing from one link to another."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1739

"Ye happy minds, that free from mortal chains, / Possess the realms where boundless pleasure reigns, / That feel the force of those immortal fires, / And reach the bliss, to which my soul aspires."

— Rowe [née Singer], Elizabeth (1674-1737)

Date: 1739

"How delightful a thing it is to love, when there is no Obstacle to those aimiable Chains with which two Hearts are united together!"

— Baker, Henry (1698-1774); Miller, James (1706-1744)

Date: 1739

"Marriage is a chain shou'd never be impos'd by Force upon a Heart, and if the Gentleman is a Man of Honour, he should never accept a Person, who must be his by Constraint."

— Baker, Henry (1698-1774); Miller, James (1706-1744)

Date: 1739

"[S]he suffers me to believe every thing, and glories in every thing; and at the same Time, my Heart is still cowardly enough, not to break the Chain that binds it, not to arm it self with a generous Disdain against the ungrateful Object it is but too much smitten with!"

— Baker, Henry (1698-1774); Miller, James (1706-1744)