Date: 1777

"Almost all the other passions may be made to take an amiable hue; but these two must either be totally extirpated, or be always contented to preserve their original deformity, and to wear their native black."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1779, 1781

"Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanicks, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1780

"Ten thousand terrors now besieg'd her soul; / Ten thousand nothings, which her fancy drest / In colour, substance, circumstance, and form."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1781

"So that all material objects, in themselves, and to each other, are dark and naked: to the mind alone are they cloathed in all the pleasing variety of sensible qualities."

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)

Date: 1781

"Mind, like a bride from a nobler family, enriches matter by its union, and brings as a dower, possessions before unknown. Henceforth matter appears cloathed in a gayer and richer garment; and the fruits of this union are a new progeny, to which matter, confining its alliance to its own family, c...

— Rotheram, John (1725–1789)

Date: 1786

"Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd, / Points to new scenes that in succession pass / Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears, / And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye / A wider range o'er all her prospects take."

— Headley, Henry (1765-1788)

Date: 1788

"To this her friend assented; and while she went to give some orders, and to fetch the crape veil in which she usually wrapped herself, (for even her dress partook something of the mournful cast of her mind) Emmeline, already equipped, went into the lawn, and saw plainly where the stranger had ma...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"For of calamity so long the prey, / Imagination now has lost her powers, / Nor will her fairy loom again essay / To dress affliction in a robe of flowers."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"But a new affliction was preparing for the marquis, which attacked him where he was most vulnerable; and the veil which had so long overshadowed his reason was now to be removed."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1790, 1794

"Their turn of expression is a dress that hangs so gracefully on gay ideas, that you are apt to suppose that wit, a quality parsimoniously distributed in other countries, is in France as common as the gift of speech."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)