Date: 1808

A woman may stretch "her blameless empire o'er the heart."

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1810

"Bid Rowe, bid Otway's magic softness rise, / Steal o'er his form, and languish in his eyes; / Melt in his voice, till Memory hints no more / The woes unreal; but, with forfeit power, / Resigns her empire o'er the yielding soul / To sighs and tears she ceases to controul."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"And, sexual pride subdued, at length disown / The Salique Law for Wit and Fancy's throne!"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1814

Shakespeare, "born for British minds alone, / To them has Fancy's boundless empire shewn"

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1814

Byron's "powerful voice, with varying tone, / Makes all the empire of the mind thine own"

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1814

Scott may "Usurp the empire of the wilder'd mind, / And leave the forms of modern life behind"

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1814

Potent rulers of opinion may rule "the empire of the willing heart"

— Grant [née MacVicar], Anne (1755-1838)

Date: 1814

"The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient--at others, so bewildered and so weak--and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond controul!"

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)