Date: 1778

If we may judge the inside of fashionable ladies' heads "by that without, they are confused enough of all conscience"

— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)

Date: 1778

The heart like a bird to its nestling will fly, / And when by the weight of a parent its bending, / Yet wishes while constant to break and to die. / Like a bird in a snare, of its freedom bereft, / Still hoping and wishing releasement again, / 'Till clos'd in the cage the flutterer is left / To p...

— Robertson, James (fl.1768-1788)

Date: 1779

"Let me exhort ye then to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance: burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the chimney of hope, take from hence the bar of good resolution, break through the stone wall of despair, and all the strong holds in the dark entry of the v...

— Anonymous

Date: August, September, and October, 1779

"At his entrance, his little deal desk mounted on his only table, stood invitingly before him: there was inspiration in the sight; he snatched wildly a cracked ink-horn from a shelf which contained nothing else, but a few mouldy crusts, and a few mouldy books; flourished his pen, looked up a mome...

— Anonymous

Date: 1779

"My mind's in equipoise, ready alike / To hold thee as my Lover, or my Foe!"

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

Date: 1779

"Those minds imbued by vice, with deepest stains, / Are often mask'd in forms almost divine-- / Deck'd forth in words, and looks, that Virtue's self / Might challenge for her own."

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

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: 1779, 1781

"The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason, without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit, that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)