Date: 1762

"Shall kings controul th' eternal rights of nature? / The free-born mind is royal of itself, / Nor asks vain glosses from exterior grandeur."

— Cradock, Joseph (1742-1826)

Date: 1765

"Thro' rooted vice my spirits fail, / Which o'er my heart an empire wins, / O let thy mercy countervail / To cover all our sins."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1765

"Be ye not like to horse or mule, / That are not bless'd with reason's rule."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1769

"And still my soul they [cares] hold in pain, / Their cruel empire to maintain."

— Fergusson, Robert (1750-1774)

Date: 1770

The master-passion may be concealed "but on great occasions,... It will break forth, and loudly tell the world / What fermentation often works the soul"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1776

The ruling passion of an author may be "strongly marked in his writings"

— Mickle, William Julius [formerly William Meikle] (1734-1788)

Date: 1780-85; in French, 36 vols. 1749-1788

"Is it difficult to perceive that our ideas originate from our senses alone; that the objects we regard as real existences, are those concerning which the senses uniformly give the same testimony."

— Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de (1707-1788)

Date: 1799

"The judge of our court of conscience is the noblest soul I ever knew"

— Ludger, Conrad (b. 1748)

Date: 1799

The Sophist boasts in vain that he can "Disprove [Nature's] general empire o'er the heart"

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816); Kotzebue (1761-1819)

Date: 1799

"Yes--they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride."

— Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816); Kotzebue (1761-1819)