Date: 1775

"But, O, my brother! if thou hast a heart / That is not steel'd with stoic apathy / Against the magic of all-conqu'ring love, / Beware of beauty's pow'r; for she has charms / Wou'd melt the frozen breast of hoary age, / Or draw the lonely hermit from his cell / To gaze upon her."

— Francklin, Thomas (1721-1784)

Date: 1776-1789

"The influence of a polite age and the labour of an attentive education had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1777

"For I never will believe that envy, though passed through all the moral strainers, can be refined into a virtuous emulation, or lying improved into an agreeable turn for innocent invention."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"Her mind, not less pure and unsullied, was obvious and transparent as the dear rivulet in the sequestered vale."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Some of the songs seemed to melt my very soul."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"'Deny me not, most charming of women," cried he, 'deny me not this only moment that is lent me, to pour forth my soul into your gentle ears,--to tell you how much I suffer from your absence,--how much I dread your displeasure,--and how cruelly I am affected by your coldness!'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"'Oh, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'that you could but read my heart!--that you could but see the filial tenderness and concern with which it overflows! you would not then talk thus,--you would not then banish me your presence, and exclude me from your affection!'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Hasten, then, my love, to bless me with thy presence, and to receive the blessings with which my fond heart overflows!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1780, 1781, 1788

"Thy simple diction, free from glaring art, / With sweet allurement steals upon the heart, / Pure, as the rill, that Nature's hand refines; / Clear, as thy harmony of soul, it shines."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

The swell of pity may not be confined with "the scanty limits of the mind"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)