Date: 1777

"Good sense is a judicious mechanic, who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable means; but Genius (I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to the divine architect, who produced perfection of beauty without any visible materials, 'who spake, a...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1780

A friend's "influence hovers o'er the panting heart ... Till the pain'd, prison'd mind shall rise, / And drop her feeble mansion in the dust, / To claim thy promis'd bliss beyond the skies"

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: 1780

"Through the night's still air / The sound of human voices, and the clank / Of iron hoofs, reveal'd a scene at once, / That almost shook his soul from her frail tenement."

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

Date: 1780

Reason's subjects work and return home with "treasures fraught" and display before their queen their "shining spoils, which are laid up in "mental stores."

— Steele, Anne (1717-1778)

Date: 1782

"What Addison has said of the Ways of Heaven, may with much more propriety & accuracy be applied to the the 'Mind of Man which indeed, is Dark & Intricate, Filled with wild Mazes, & perplexed with Error.''"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"The life I led at the cottage was the life of a savage; no intercourse with society, no consolation from books; my mind locked up, every source dried of intellectual delight, and no enjoyment in my power but from sleep and from food."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"Here tranquility once more made its abode the heart of Cecilia; that heart so long torn with anguish, suspense and horrour!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1784

"The hidden lead indents the murderer's brain; / With one demoniac glance, as down he fell, / The soul starts furious from its vital cell."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1785

"Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light / To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects, / And fain would push the heavenly stranger back; / She loathes the cranny which admits the day; / Confused, afraid of the intruding guest; / Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam, / Which to herself her n...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)