Date: 1781

"My head and ears confus'd, I find / One cannot here relax the Mind, / In vain she strives to slip her chains, / Law, Law, through all these regions reigns; / So back to Chambers I return, / More Patience, and more Law, to learn."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1781

"When love is fetter'd, all is fire, / And tender passion soon decays; / Like those sweet birds which soon expire, / When we wou'd force their tuneful lays."

— Whalley, Thomas Sedgwick (1746-1828)

Date: 1781

"Insulted Reason fled the grov'ling soul, / For Fear to guide, and visions to control: / But now, when Reason has assumed her throne, / She, in her turn, demands to reign alone"

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Date: 1781

Reason may reject "all that lies beyond her view / And being judge, will be a witness too"

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Date: 1781

"Blest be the gracious Power, who taught mankind / To stamp a lasting image of the mind!"

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)

Date: December, 1781; 1835

"Smooth, ductile, and even, [the poet's] fancy must flow, / Must tinkle and glitter like gold to the sight / And catch in its progress a sensible glow."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, / Our most important are our earliest years. / The mind impressible and soft, with ease / Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, / And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue /That education gives her, false or true."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

The mind may be "unfurnish'd" and listless

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

Superficial education slights "the precious kernel of the stone" and polishes "its rough coat alone"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"Faults in the life breed errors in the brain"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)