Date: 1744
"By toys entangled, or in guilt bemired, / [Ambition] turns a curse; it is our chain and scourge / In this dark dungeon, where confined we lie, / Close-grated by the sordid bars of sense; / All prospect of eternity shut out; / And, but for execution, ne'er set free."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1751
"Thus a lively Imagination and unperceived Self-Love, fetter the Heart in certain ideal Bonds of their own creating: Till at length some turbulent and furious Passion arising in its Strength, breaks these fantastic Shackles which Fancy had imposed, and leaps to its Prey like a Tyger chained by Co...
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)
Date: 1753
"Sorrow renounces latitude of range: / Dwells in confinement's cave; where thought sits chain'd / Muses are shunn'd: and horror's winking lamp."
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1753
"Where shall a thoughtless youth this treasure find? / This art of judgment, that becalms the mind? / Chains anger short; and sets reflection free, / Gives tumult temper---and makes fortune see?"
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1759
"But the Nets woven by the human Imagination, altho' they are composed of the smallest Materials, are perhaps full as difficult to be broken as the strongest real Bonds"
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Date: 1784
"Had I the dread necessity explained, / That with resistless force my freedom chained; / Tore the sweet bands, by virtuous passion tied, / And stampt our constancy with parricide."
preview | full record— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)
Date: 1788
"See the fond links of feeling nature broke! / The fibres twisting round a parent's heart, / Torn from their grasp, and bleeding as they part."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1788
"He had been the slave of beauty, the captive of sense; love he ne'er had felt; the mind never rivetted the chain, nor had the purity of it made the body appear lovely in his eyes."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: March 8, 1790
"Your pow'r my captive heart in chains shall bind, / Sweet as the graces of your face and mind."
preview | full record— Kemble, John Philip (1757-1823)