Date: 1779

"If right I read, your mind in balance hangs / 'Twixt the opposing principles of good / And ill."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1781

Cold books "stamp but dead impressions on the mind"

— Raspe, Rudolph Eric (1737-1794); Lessing, G. E. (1729-1781)

Date: 1782

"Have you shewn a jewel / Out of the cabinet of your rich mind / To lock it up again?"

— Dudley, Sir Henry Bate (1745-1824)

Date: 1783

"To work, my hearts of oak, to work; here the sun is half an hour high, and not a stroke struck yet."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1784

"I love to weep, love the soft feast of grief, / Court mournful thoughts, nor ever wish relief;-- / Sadness I woo, yet still the phantom flies, / And joy seduces, whilst I ask for sighs."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1785

In the "scales of suspense" two fancies may be hung

— MacNally, Leonard (1752-1820)

Date: 1785

"Love is a lady's profession, / Her heart is so tenderly cast, / Like wax it will take an impression, / But then the impression will last"

— Colman, George, the younger (1762-1836)

Date: 1788

"[A guardian] claps a pen in my hand, and ties me like a seal to his ugly parchment, while my heart can receive no impression, but the idea of my beloved Aircourt"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1788

"I own that my heart yields like wax to the impression of the little god"

— Cobb, James (1756-1818)

Date: 1788

A heart of wax may be "soon hot and soon cold, and yields to a different impression every day"

— Cobb, James (1756-1818)