Date: 1755

"He sends his Harbinger before, the Youth / Adorn'd with Beauty, Chastity and Truth: / To base unworthy Slavery betray'd, / With Fetters gall'd, in Chains of Iron laid, / Which pierc'd his Soul; till the celestial Word, / In destin'd Hour, his Innocence explor'd."

— Tollet, Elizabeth (1694-1754)

Date: 1755

"When the mind is unchained from necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"Then shall my cruel Foe, abash'd, recede, / Finding his artful Snares are vainly spread. / Of rolling Years, eleven are past in Pain, / Since I was doom'd to wear the galling Chain: / The Chain which am'rous Minds are forc'd to bear, / Still to the most Submissive, most severe."

— Masters, Mary (1694-1771)

Date: 1756

"A lazy languor creeps along my veins; / Dull, and more dull my heavy eyelids grow, / And ev'ry sense accepts the leaden chains."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: 1756, 1766

"But then a question may be asked, What need have we of revelation, since reason can so fully instruct us, and its bonds alone are sufficient to hold us;--and in particular, what becomes of the principal part of revelation, called redemption?

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1758

"Fortune is an evil Chain to the Body; and Vice, to the Soul. For he whose Body is unbound, and whose Soul is chained, is a Slave. On the contrary, he whose Body is chained, and his Soul unbound, is free."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1758

"The Chain of the Body, Nature unbinds by Death; and Vice, by Money: the Chain of the Soul, Virtue unbinds, by Learning, and Experience, and philosophic Exercise."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1759

"But the Nets woven by the human Imagination, altho' they are composed of the smallest Materials, are perhaps full as difficult to be broken as the strongest real Bonds"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"Lady Dellwyn now felt herself bound in the most whimsical Chain, made only by her own Imagination, which had imposed on her the Belief that she was bereft of all Liberty of breaking off her Acquaintance with Lord Clermont.

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"Not Charms alone made the Fam'd Sisters great, / Both wedded, to high Titles, Wealth, and State; / But bland Complacence, and obsequious Art, / That could, with silken Bands, enthrall the Heart."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)