Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875

"The groves of Kew, however misapplied / To serve the purposes of lust and pride, / Were, by the greater monarch's care, designed / A place of conversation for the mind; / Where solitude and silence should remain, / And conscience keep her sessions and arraign."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: May 7, 1772

"Conscience, that candid judge of right and wrong, / Will o'er the secrets of each heart preside, / Nor aw'd by pomp, nor tam'd by soothing song."

— Fergusson, Robert (1750-1774)

Date: 1772

"With that strong master of our frame, / The inexorable judge within / What can be done?"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1772

"Their ruling Passion Want of Gold supplies, / To that alone they offer Sacrifice; / The Thirst of Gold was first the guilty Source / Of our Misfortunes, and their bloody Force."

— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811) [Editor]

Date: June 4, 1772, 1773

In the fields "peerless Fancy hads her court / And tunes her lays."

— Fergusson, Robert (1750-1774)

Date: 1772

"Long I every means have tried / To subdue the inbred ill; / Still I am not sanctified, / Rules my ruling passion still."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1773

"O Wisdom! if thy soft controul / Can soothe the sickness of the soul, / Can bid the warring passions cease, / And breathe the calm of tender peace;-- / Wisdom! I bless thy gentle sway, / And ever, ever will obey."

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

Date: 1764, 1773

"Such is my theme, which means to prove, / That tho' we drink, or game, or love, / As that or this is most in fashion, / Precedence is our ruling passion."

— Shenstone, William (1714-1763)

Date: 1773

"There may I worship, and there may'st Thou place / Thy Seat of Mercy and Thy Throne of Grace; / Yea, fix, if Christ my Advocate appear, / The dread Tribunal of Thy Justice there!"

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)

Date: 1773

"In full perfection all thy works are wrought, / And thine the sceptre o'er the realms of thought."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)