Date: 1758

"Fortune is an evil Chain to the Body; and Vice, to the Soul. For he whose Body is unbound, and whose Soul is chained, is a Slave. On the contrary, he whose Body is chained, and his Soul unbound, is free."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1758

"The Chain of the Body, Nature unbinds by Death; and Vice, by Money: the Chain of the Soul, Virtue unbinds, by Learning, and Experience, and philosophic Exercise."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1759

"But the Nets woven by the human Imagination, altho' they are composed of the smallest Materials, are perhaps full as difficult to be broken as the strongest real Bonds"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"Lady Dellwyn now felt herself bound in the most whimsical Chain, made only by her own Imagination, which had imposed on her the Belief that she was bereft of all Liberty of breaking off her Acquaintance with Lord Clermont.

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1762

"Ne’er did thy Voice assume a Master’s Pow’r, / Nor force Assent to what thy Precepts taught; / But bid my independent Spirit soar, / In all the Freedom of unfett’red Thought"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1769

"That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the happiness of the other; ...

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1773

"But soon, alas! this holy calm is broke; / My soul submits to wear her wonted yoke; / With shackled pinions strives to soar in vain, / And mingles with the dross of earth again."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"With darts and flames some arm his [Love's] feeble hands, / His infant brow with regal honours crown; / Whilst vanquished Reason, bound with silken bands, / Meanly submissive, falls below his throne."

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

Date: w. 1763, 1776

"By mercy prompted his correcting hand / Inflicts the stroke of salutary pain, / To check tyrannic Passions's wild demand, / And free our Reason from it's slavish chain."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1779

"Banish'd--robb'd of my country, and my name; / Yet they have left a mind defies their vengeance-- / Which, though these limbs were lock'd in bolts of steel, / And darkness wrapt these precious founts of light, / Would rise superior to their bounded power, / And scorn alike their fetters, and the...

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