Date: 1789

"'Tis [the letter of the law] the birdlime of reason to fasten our senses."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"Heav'n's pure Word would prompt Affection win, / And purge the Soul from all polluting Sin; / Till, like a faithful mirror Man would shine, / By Wisdom polish'd, and by Grace, divine."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"Can Mammon's votaries vainly hope to bind, / In shining shackles, his immortal Mind?"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: w. 1789, 1804

"While Vanity unveils her whiffling flags, / Her glittering trinkets, and her tawdry rags-- / Spreads spangled nets, and fills her philter'd bowl, / To fix each Sense, and fascinate the Soul-- / Her birdlime twigs contrived with such sly Art, / That while they tangle thoughts, they trap the heart...

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1790

"[P]ains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again"

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: 1790, 1794

"You, my dear friend, who have felt the tender attachments of love and friendship, and the painful anxieties which absence occasions, even amidst scenes of variety and pleasure; who understand the value at which tidings from those we love is computed in the arithmetic of the heart."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794

He was allowed to do so, and read it till every word was imprinted on his memory; and after enjoying the sad luxury of holding it that night on his bosom, was forced the next morning to relinquish his treasure."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794

"How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!"

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794

"Their turn of expression is a dress that hangs so gracefully on gay ideas, that you are apt to suppose that wit, a quality parsimoniously distributed in other countries, is in France as common as the gift of speech."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: December 1790

"Not having leisure or patience to follow this desultory writer through all the devious tracks in which his fancy has started fresh game, I have confined my strictures, in a great measure, to the grand principles at which he has levelled many ingenious arguments in a very specious garb."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)