Date: 1766

"'Love', is more sanguine, than gallantry; having for its object, the person, whom we are studious to please, through a view of possessing; and, whom we love as much, on her account, as our own: it takes possession of the heart, suddenly, and, owes its birth, to a certain something, which enchain...

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1766

Love "leaves us not the liberty of choice; it commands in the beginning, as a master, and, reigns, afterwards, as a tyrant, till we are accustomed to its chains, by length of time; or, till they are broken by the efforts of powerful reason, or, the caprice of continued vexation."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1766

Earthly pleasures are "Not meant by heav'n to perish unenjoy'd, / Or pass'd with scorn by superstitious pride; / Nor, grov'ling here, the brutal soul to chain, / Where happiness is still alloy'd with pain; / But there the soaring intellect to fix, / Where pain or sorrow ne'er with transport mix."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: September, 1766

"Deliver me, gracious Lord from the bondage of doubt and from all evil customs, and take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but enable me so to spend my remaining days, that by performing thy will I may promote thy glory, and grant that after the troubles and disappointments of this mortal state I may ...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1767

"Yet, to the stoic apathy estrang'd, / Thou canst, with steady courage, probe to th' quick / The wound thou mean'st to cure; thou canst reprove / With all the sweet persuasion of esteem: / And give a momentary pang, to free / The worthy mind from its ignoble chain."

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875

"Not yet contented with his boundless sway, / Which all perforce must outwardly obey, / He thought to throw his chain upon the mind; / Nor would he leave conjecture unconfined."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: 1771

"But, Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and to virtue nothing but my wishes and my sighs."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1774

"When they come to be a little better acquainted with themselves, and with their own species, they discover that plain right reason is, nine times in ten, the fettered and shackled attendant of the triumph of the heart and the passions; and, consequently, they address themselves nine times in ten...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"The nymph, who in my bosom reigns, / With such full force my heart enchains, / That nothing ever can impair / The empire she possesses there."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

Date: 1776-1789

"In the same manner [says Longinus] as some children always remain pigmies, whose infant limbs have been too closely confined; thus our tender minds, fettered by the prejudices and habits of a just servitude, are unable to expand themselves, or to attain that well-proportioned greatness which we ...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)