Date: 1763

"Try, thou State-Juggler, ev'ry paltry art, / Ransack the inmost closet of my heart / Swear Thou'rt my Friend; by that base oath make way / Into my breast, and flatter to betray."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1781

"But now, farewell, ye flow'ry Cells, / Where bright Imagination dwells, / Round whom in Circles ever gay / The young Ideas love to play"

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1781

"Oh, I begin to take you--your days--the rusticated remains of a ruined Temple Critic--a smatterer of high life from the scenes of Cibber, which remain upon his imagination, as they do upon the stage, forty years after the real characters are lost"

— Burgoyne, John (1722-1792)

Date: 1784

"But, for the furniture within, / Whether it be of brains, or lead, / What matters it, so there's a head?"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1784

"Nor is it thinking much, but doing, / That keeps our tenements from ruin"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1798

"I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1805

"Shall she pronounce that generous Heart / A store-room vile of selfish Art?"

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1807-8

"[T]hrough the cells / And channels of his phrensy-stricken brain / Rage and confusion rush'd; the solemn peal / Broke on his ear like his salvation's knell, / Whilst his vext conscience struggled, but too late, / To rend th' insatiate demon from his heart"

— Burges, Sir James Bland (1752-1824)

Date: 1815

"Is Man to say--I've reach'd the goal, / I'll now dismiss th'imprison'd soul; / With my own hand I'll ope the way / From its base tenement of clay."

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)

Date: 1815

"With my own hand I'll ope the way / From its base tenement of clay; / Tir'd of its suff'rings here below, / I'll loose it from this scene of woe; / I'll prune its wings and let it fly, / To seek again its native sky."

— Combe, William (1742 -1823)