Date: 1796, 1806

"O! blessings on thee!--soft, this ray of hope / Dazzles my aching senses, and I start / As from a dream of horror, where the brain, / Stampt with the semblance of some phantom dire / Reflects it, waking, to the fearful gaze!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796

"There lux'ry spreads profusion wide, / To glut the iron breast of pride!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: w. October, 1796; 1810

"Conscious the mortal stamp is on thy breast."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1796, 1817

"Full many a thought uncall'd and undetain'd, / And many idle flitting phantasies, / Traverse my indolent and passive brain, / As wild and various as the random gales / That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!"

— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Date: 1796, 1817

"And what if all of animated nature / Be but organic Harps diversely fram'd, / That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps / Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze, / At once the Soul of each, and God of all?"

— Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834)

Date: 1796

"'Your son,' concluded he, 'will quickly put off his dirty dress—The dress hath not stained the mind—that is fair and honourable.""

— Edgeworth, Maria

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"His argument on topics of less absurdity is specious and acute, his manner is lively, his style forcible and clear; and, had not his vigorous mind been clouded by enthusiasm, he might be ranked with the most agreeable and ingenious writers of the times."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"The action of the pen will doubtless imprint an idea on the mind as well as on the paper: but I much question whether the benefits of this laborious method are adequate to the waste of time; and I must agree with Dr. Johnson, (Idler, No. 74.) 'that what is twice read, is commonly better remember...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"But this obscurity sometimes proceeds from a mixture of light and darkness in the author's mind; from a partial ray which strikes upon an angle, instead of spreading itself over the surface of an object."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)