Date: w. 1739, 1762
Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1766
"For Brag [a card game] most wisely was design'd, / To shew each pimple of the mind, / The faithful mirror of the heart, / Each lurking foible to impart."
preview | full record— Jemmat [née Yeo], Catherine (bap. 1714, d. 1766?)
Date: 1767, 1784
"So, when on some weighty truth / A beam of heav'nly light its lustre sheds, / To Reason's eye it looks supremely fair."
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)
Date: 1787
"May Europe's race the generous toil pursue, / And Truth's broad mirror spread to every view; / Awake to Reason's voice the savage mind, / Check Error's force, and civilize mankind."
preview | full record— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)
Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788
"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1788
"And ah! the blessings valued most / By human minds, are blessings lost / Unlike the objects of the eye, / Enlarging, as we bring them nigh, / Our joys, at distance strike the breast, / And seem diminish'd when possest."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)