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: 1724, 1755

Reason's view is finite

— Tollet, Elizabeth (1694-1754)

Date: 1733

Reason's "clear Mirror" can reflect the past actions and represent passions

— Masters, Mary (1694-1771)

Date: 1733, 1748

"Where thou [Memory] art not, the cheerless human mind / Is one vast void, all darksome, sad, and blind; / No trace of anything remains behind."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: 1754

"But in this we are much kinder to our sense than to our intellect; for in order to assist the former we use glasses and spectacles of all kinds adapted to our deficiency of sight, whereas in the latter we are so far from accepting the assistance of mental glasses or spectacles, that we often str...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

"Solitude now was all he sought, and dismissing his Companions, on Pretence of private Business, he retired to his Chamber to indulge his new Meditations, there making a Mirror of his Mind, he contemplated the Image of the beauteous Cressida; his raptured Fancy dwelt upon the inchanting Look she ...

— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)

Date: 1754

"Yet such horrid thoughts, my sister, have risen in your Amanda's breast, but thanks to the mercy and grave of my redeemer, they past hastily through my bosom, and from the extreme wretchedness of my earthly situation (for surely no torment can be greater to a tender heart, than the breaking up a...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd, / How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude / Appears the painted Cheat."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1764

"Dead Letters, thus with Living Notions fraught, / Prove to the Soul the Telescopes of Thought"

— Grierson [née Crawley], Constantia (1704/5-1732)