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Date: 1761, 1765

"Labour and Want (unhospitable twain) / Chill not the current in Life's salient vein; / Nor damp the spirits, else of sprightly cast, / Nor check the nobler passions of the breast; / Nor blunt the fine Sensation's tender edge, / Which man's chief pride philosophers allege. / Thus some fair ...

— Stevenson, William (1730-1783)

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Date: 1762

"Reflect, before the fatal Ax / My threatned Doom has wrought: / Nor sacrifice to sensual Taste / The nobler Growth of Thought."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

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Date: 1764

"Like such a garden, when the human soul, / Uncultured, wild, impatient of control, / Brings forth those passions of luxuriant race, /Which spread, and stifle every herb of grace

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1764

Virtue may wither on the bed she was born until Philosophy steps in and "clears the encumbered land" and "roots up every weed"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1766

"Gen'rous bosoms, more than gems of gold, / Rich funds of morals, knowledge, sense, unfold; / Transmitting each, to each, the rising store, / For wisdom's plants, while cropping, flourish more, A magic circle! whose enchanted round, / Admits no fiend to tread the hallow'd ground."

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

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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: 1767, 1784

"But plant some gentler passion in its room, / Some virtuous instinct suited to your make, / As glory is to ours, alike required / A ransom for the vulgar's vassal state, / Then wou'dst thou soon the strong contention own, / And justify my conduct."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

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Date: 1771, 1776

"Adieu, ye lays, that fancy's flowers adorn, / The soft amusement of the vacant mind!"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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Date: 1773

Souls may be ripened in "our northern sky"

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

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Date: 1773, 1810

"Hail, mild Philosophy! the province thine, / To chase the spectres of the dark Divine! / Not to fix errour, but with reason's art, / To root the stiff old-woman from the heart."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

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