Date: 1713, 1719

"For in our Youth we commonly dress our Thoughts in the Mirrour of Self-Flattery, and expect that Heaven, Fortune, and the World, should cajole our Follies, as we do our own, and lay all Faults on others, and all Praise on our selves."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1747

"Since here defective, Heaven be so kind / With never-fading charms to dress my mind"

— Teft, Elizabeth (fl. 1741-7)

Date: 1748

"But how will this dismantled soul appear,/ When stripped of all it lately held so dear,/ Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: October 20, 1752

It is bad manners for Richardson's heroines to "declare all they think [since] fig leaves are necessary for our minds as our bodies."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1752

"To charm his reason dress your mind, / Till love shall be with friendship joined."

— Clark [née Lewis], Esther (bap. 1716, d. 1794)

Date: 1755

"But, must the Soul, uncloth'd and cold, / Appear, her Maker to behold? / Or shall the gaping Grave restore, / The Robe of Flesh which once she wore?"

— Tollet, Elizabeth (1694-1754)

Date: 1758

"Check not the flow of sweet fraternal love, / By Heav'n's high King in bounty giv'n, / Thy stubborn heart to soften and improve, / Thy earth-clad spirit to refine, / And gradual raise to love divine, / And wing its soaring flight to Heav'n!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1777

"Almost all the other passions may be made to take an amiable hue; but these two must either be totally extirpated, or be always contented to preserve their original deformity, and to wear their native black."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1780

"Ten thousand terrors now besieg'd her soul; / Ten thousand nothings, which her fancy drest / In colour, substance, circumstance, and form."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1788

"To this her friend assented; and while she went to give some orders, and to fetch the crape veil in which she usually wrapped herself, (for even her dress partook something of the mournful cast of her mind) Emmeline, already equipped, went into the lawn, and saw plainly where the stranger had ma...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)