Date: 1774

"Vanity is unquestionably the ruling passion in women; and it is much flattered by the attentions of a man who is generally esteemed by men; when his merit has received the stamp of their approbation, women make it current, that is to say, put him in fashion."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"The nymph, who in my bosom reigns, / With such full force my heart enchains, / That nothing ever can impair / The empire she possesses there."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

Date: 1774

"To them see Genius her best gifts impart, / And Science raise a throne in every heart!"

— Scott, Mary [later Taylor] (1751/2-1793)

Date: 1775

"Coriolanus has here carried his sternness, and the strained principles of stoical pride, whose throne is only in the mind, as far as they could go; and now great Nature, whose more sovereign seat of empire is in the heart, takes her turn to triumph; for upon the joint prayers, tears, and intreat...

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1775

"Also those phenomena in nature which depend upon gravity, electricity, &c. are no less various and complex; and the more we know of nature, the more particular facts, and particular laws, we are able to reduce to simple and general laws: insomuch that now it does not appear impossible, but that,...

— Priestley, Joseph (1733-1804)

Date: 1775

"Suspence not long my anxious bosom pain'd, / My friend arrived, I clasp'd her to my breast, / I wept, I smiled, alternate passions reign'd, / Till me the sad unwelcome tale confess'd."

— Miss H******* (fl. 1751-1775)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"With darts and flames some arm his [Love's] feeble hands, / His infant brow with regal honours crown; / Whilst vanquished Reason, bound with silken bands, / Meanly submissive, falls below his throne."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"Each fabling poet sure alike mistakes / The gentle power that reigns o'er tender hearts."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1776, 1781, 1788-89

"At the age of twelve years he embraced the rigid system of the Stoicks, which taught him to submit his body to his mind, his passions to his reason; to consider virtue as the only good, vice as the only evil, all things external, as things indifferent."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776-1789

"Like most of the Africans, Severus was passionately addicted to the vain studies of magic and divination, deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and omens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of judicial astrology; which, in almost every age except the present, has maintained its do...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)