Date: 1782

"Let Critic Reason all her light diffuse / O'er the wide empire of this injur'd [Epic] Muse"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"Where'er that Parent of engaging thought, / Warm Sensibility, like light, has taught / The bright'ning mirror of the mind to shew / Nature's reflected forms in all their glow."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"Is all over? no ray of reason left? no knowledge of thy wretched Delvile?"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"Why drive him from my presence? he might now / Raise my sunk soul, and my benighted mind / Enlighten with religion's cheering ray."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1782

"Proceed, proceed, thrice venerable sage! / Enlighten my dark mind with this new ray, / This dawning of salvation!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1782

One may have a mind "Not yet so blank, or fashionably blind, / But now and then perhaps a feeble ray /Of distant wisdom shoots across his way"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?"

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"David, whose heart and affections were naturally of the first kind (and who indeed had experienced blessings without number) pours fourth the grateful sentiments of his enraptured soul in the sweetest modulations of pathetic oratory;--the tender mercies of the Almighty are not less to many of hi...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1782

"Such a research would richly pay us--for the end would be conviction--so much on the side of miraculous mercy--such an unanswerable proof of the superintendency of Divine Providence, as would effectually cure us of rash despondency--and melt our hearts--with devotional aspirations--till we poure...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1783

" And when thou yields to night thy wide domain, / Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)