Date: 1751, 1791

"To Fancy's court we strait apply, / And wait the sentence of her eye."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: w. August, 1745; 1822

"Above the thirst of gold, if in his heart / Ambition govern'd, Av'rice had no part."

— Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury (1708-1759)

Date: 1762-3

The five senses may "Allow [Reason] to retain the name / Of Royalty, and, as in sport, / To hold a mimic formal court, / Permitted (no uncommon thing) / To be a kind of puppet-king, / And suffer'd, by the way of toy, / To hold a globe, but not employ"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1767, 1778

"Envy in courts and cottages will dwell, / Nay climb to heaven itself, tho' born in hell: / In every living bosom lurks this pest, / But reigns unrival'd in the human breast; / On reason's throne usurps a thorny part, / And plants a thousand daggers in the heart."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen, / When I say wit, I wisdom mean) / Where, (such the practice of the court, / Which legal precedents support) / Not one idea is allow'd / To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, / But ere it can obtain the grace / Of holding in the brain a place, / Before the chief i...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1759

"Mark well the Passion, that most rules his Heart, / By courting that, you may rule him with Art; / You may his ruling Passion govern so, / 'Twill be your constant Friend, instead of Foe."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

Date: 1744

"The witnesses are heard; the cause is o'er; / Let Conscience file the sentence in her court, / Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Could human courts take vengeance on the mind, / Axes might rust, and racks and gibbets fall: / Guard then thy mind, and leave the rest to fate."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1789, 1791, 1799

"Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, / Inexorable Conscience holds his court"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)