Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1790

"I shall, perhaps, deserve censure for concealing a name which belongs to so much excellence, but I fear to offend the delicacy of your nature; true merit is ever modest, and your mind, like the sensitive plant at the touch, would shrink from the voice of public celebrity."

— Anonymous

Date: 1790

"Behold lovely Westmorland leads the gay throng, / Herself by the graces led calmly along; / With a bosom of innocence easily hit / By the nice ball of humour or arrow of wit; / With a mind which when tragical sorrows appear / Rushes up to her eye, and descends in a tear."

— Anonymous

Date: 1790

"Divine Sensibility! widely impart / Thy fibres of feeling, and live in each heart!"

— Anonymous

Date: 1790

"My subject is light--let me speak of the stage; / Let the tablet of memory faithfully name / Some sons of drama who breathe but in fame, / Nay more--let me follow the delicate clue, / And give to the living the praise that is due."

— Anonymous

Date: 1790

"She seemed to have entered upon a new state of existence;--those fine springs of affection which had hitherto lain concealed, were now touched, and yielded to her a happiness more exalted than any her imagination ever painted."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"She was a woman of infinite art, devoted to pleasure, and of an unconquerable spirit."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"His passions were vehement, and she had the address to bend them to her own purpose; and so well to conceal her influence, that he thought himself most independent when he was most enslaved."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"It was not in the rapid intricacies of execution, that she excelled so much as in that delicacy of taste, and in those enchanting powers of expression, which seem to breathe a soul through the sound, and which take captive the heart of the hearer."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790

"But they were happy, for they knew not enough of the world seriously to regret the want of its enjoyments, though Julia would sometimes sigh for the airy image which her fancies painted, and a painful curiosity would arise concerning the busy scenes from which she was excluded."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)