Date: 1760-7

"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1782

"Oh! lads, beware the month of May;--for you blest girls--nature decked out--as in a birth-day suit--courts you with all its sweets--where-e'er you tread--the grass and wanton flowerets fondly kiss your feet--and humbly bow their pretty heads--to the gentle sweepings of your under-petticoats--the...

— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)

Date: 1799

"A head of wax should never court the sun."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

"He will by this means too escape the pernicious snares of flattery, the servile court of interested inferiors, and all the various mischiefs which poison the minds of young men bred up as heirs to great estates and titles."

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

Date: 1777, 1810

"And oft the bard's elastic mind / To lighter images inclined; / In concord with Anacreon's measure, / Courts the jovial gods of pleasure."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1765, 1770

"Passions, and snow balls each by motion swell, / And Kitty finds her little heart rebel; / Full of desires she sighs for this, and that, / Her heart for ev'ry man goes pit-a-pat."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

Date: 1765, 1770

"This is the man who first impeach'd his friend, / And on his ruin rose, yet could not lend / One cobweb virtue from his scurvy soul, / Which sins by study, and without controul."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

Date: 1799

"Ignorance has set her stamp upon him--his mind seared to every virtuous impression--his heart flint, and his temper moved by the slightest breath"

— West, Matthew (d. 1814); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

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)