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Date: 1764

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

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

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Date: 1765

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

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

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Date: 1766

"Lightly she treads the russet Mead, / The Flowers, blushing, bow their Head, / And but in Fancy's Mirrour view, / Charms, as unsully'd, as their Hue."

— Joel, Thomas (fl. 1766)

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Date: 1766

"In judgment's sunshine fancy's flow'rets bloom, / And innocence exalts their fresh perfume: / No weeds of envy choke the fertile soil"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

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Date: 1766

"She, whose bright presence, dull December's day / Might metamorphose into sprightly May; / Whose virtuous manners, and whose polish'd mind, / May stand the test and mirror of mankind."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

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Date: 1767, 1784

"So, when on some weighty truth / A beam of heav'nly light its lustre sheds, / To Reason's eye it looks supremely fair."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

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Date: 1767, 1784

"The curious structure of these visual orbs, / The windows of the mind; substance how clear, / Aqueous, or crystalline! through which the soul, / As thro' a glass, all outward things surveys."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

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Date: 1772-1781

What availed the songs of a "mighty mind, / With inward light irradiate, mirror-like / Receiv'd, and to mankind with ray reflex / The sov'reign Planter's primal work display'd?"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

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Date: 1773

"Soaring though air to find the bright abode, / Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God, / We on thy pinions can surpass the wind, / And leave the rolling universe behind; / From star to star the mental optics rove, / Measure the skies, and range the realms above."

— Wheatley, Phillis (c.1753–1784)

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Date: 1773

"Think'st thou, had Fancy's mirror struck his sight, / And brought thy too degenerate deeds to light; / Had shewn thee curst to such a vicious race, / Whose very breath contaminates the place: / How would his manly heart with grief have died / T'have seen this fatal barrier to his pride?"

— Anonymous

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.