Date: 1751, 1791

"The mirrour, faithful to its charge, / Reflects the virgin's soul in large."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Now take a Simile at Hand, / Compare the mental Soil to Land."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The passions are a num'rous crowd, / Imperious, positive, and loud: / Curb these licentious sons of strife; / Hence chiefly rise the storms of life: / If they grow mutinous, and rave, / They are thy masters, thou their slave."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Passions that flatter, or that slay, / Are beasts that fawn, or birds that prey."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"That Breast, where Honour builds his Throne, / That Breast, which Virtue calls her own."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"The brain's an useless organ grown, / And Reason tumbled from his throne."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"This home philosophy, you know, / Was priz'd some thousand years ago. / Then why abroad a frequent guest? / Why such a stranger to your breast?"

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Not all the volumes on thy shelf, / Are worth that single volume, Self."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Inglorious bondage to the mind, / Heaven-born, sublime, and unconfin'd!"

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)