Date: 1777

"For the mind is an instrument, which, if wound too high, will lose its sweetness, and if not enough strained, will abate of its vigour."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777, 1810

"When thus, by prospect, and by thought, / My mind to harmony is wrought; / Already conscious of the rising strain, / The path to Knighton I regain."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

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: 1780

"If my eventful tale / Hath touch'd the chords of pity in your heart, / And swell'd the sympathetic tear--soft tribute! / By gentle minds, to sorrow ever paid, / --Know, 'tis no stranger's woes I have related; / I am the object of my own sad story."

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

Date: 1782

"I meant to have repeated the lesson, to have tuned your whole heart to compassion, and to have taught you the sad duties of sympathising humanity."

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

Date: 1782

"Where are those cunning men, / Who boast, by chosen sounds, and measur'd sweetness, / To set the busy spirits in a flame, / And cool them at their will? who know the art / To call the hidden pow'rs of numbers forth, / And make that pliant instrument, the mind, / Yield to the pow'rful sympathy of...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1784

"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1785

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds: "as the mind is pitch'd the ear is pleased"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Who then that has a mind well strung and tuned / To contemplation, and within his reach / A scene so friendly to his favourite task, / Would waste attention at the chequer'd board, / His host of wooden warriors to and fro / Marching and counter-marching, with an eye / As fixt as marble, with a f...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"I thought to see Dan. Pope a swan, / After his soul had done with man; / And many a tuneful soul, in love, / Cooing soft couplets in a dove; / Huge elephants I thought to find / The lodgings of the learned mind; / Pindar's pure soul in Eagle mould, / And Gray's on the same perch of gold; / Hammo...

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