Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd, / How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude / Appears the painted Cheat."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1763

"A far-stretch'd mirror spreads: its Bosom shews / Th'inverted prospect, circled in with hills / And cliffs, a Theatre immense!"

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1763

"No--'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells, / When She with more than tragic horror swells / Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true, / She brings bad actions forth into review; / And, like the dread hand-writing on the wall, / Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call, / Arm'd at al...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1764

"Dead Letters, thus with Living Notions fraught, / Prove to the Soul the Telescopes of Thought"

— Grierson [née Crawley], Constantia (1704/5-1732)

Date: 1764

"Such principles are parts of our constitution, no less than the power of thinking: reason can neither make nor destroy them; nor can it do any thing without them: it is like a telescope, which may help a man to see farther, who hath eyes; but without eyes, a telescope shows nothing at all."

— Reid, Thomas (1710-1796)

Date: 1765

Displays may be "Pregnant, beyond the nicest human search, / Where thought can pierce, or telescope can see"

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

Date: Published serially, 1765-1770

"And we shall be as so many Mirrors, wherein our divine Friend and Father shall delight to behold the express Image of his own Person, his own Perfections and Beatitudes represented for ever."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1765

"The best Way to prove the Clearness of our Mind is by shewing its Faults; as when a Stream discovers the Dirt at the Bottom, it convinces us of the Transparency and Purity of the Water."

— Anonymous

Date: 1766

"For Brag [a card game] most wisely was design'd, / To shew each pimple of the mind, / The faithful mirror of the heart, / Each lurking foible to impart."

— Jemmat [née Yeo], Catherine (bap. 1714, d. 1766?)