Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789
"Oh! I'm sick to the soul, to see Music alone, / Stretch her negligent length on the Drama's gay throne; / Where Muses more honor'd by Wisdom should sit, / To adorn the heart's mirror, and fashion our wit"
preview | full record— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)
Date: 1789
"Thro' thy [Fancy's] false medium then, no longer view'd, / May fancied pain and fancied pleasure fly, / And I, as from me all thy dreams depart, / Be to my wayward destiny subdu'd."
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: w. 1789, 1804
"Heav'n's pure Word would prompt Affection win, / And purge the Soul from all polluting Sin; / Till, like a faithful mirror Man would shine, / By Wisdom polish'd, and by Grace, divine."
preview | full record— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)
Date: 1790
"Or novelty, fair pleasure's youthful queen, / Gives fresh allurements to each splendid scene, / To these, in fancy's varying mirror shown, / Amusement charms with beauties not its own."
preview | full record— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)
Date: 1790
"And o'er Imagination's gloomy glass, / Despair's mute sons like Banquo's visions pass"
preview | full record— Merry, Robert (1755-1798)
Date: 1792
"As when in ocean sinks the orb of day, / Long on the wave reflected lustres play; / Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned / Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind."
preview | full record— Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855)
Date: w. 1780, 1792
"Blest be the tribute of those tears, that start / From Friendship's eye, the mirrors of the heart."
preview | full record— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)
Date: 1793
"In fancy's mirror dreadful scenes appear, / Design'd by doubt, and magnified by fear, / There some gay female, frivolous and vain, / Artfully forms the captivating chain; / Makes him the slave of passion and caprice, / Perverts his principles, and wounds his peace."
preview | full record— Burrell [née Raymond, later Clay], Sophia, Lady Burrell (1750-1802)
Date: 1793
"To paint th' ecstatic tumult of their souls, / The rapture of deliverance from death / Thus threatenting, and the mutual joys of safety, / Description aims not, for too weak her power, / Too faint her colours: diffident she points / To fancy's faithful mirror, and then drops / Her useless pencil."
preview | full record— Kett, Henry (1761-1825)
Date: 1796
"No drug, nor juice of all the acid tribe, / Can move the Tints, which Glassy Pores imbibe; / So no mean prejudice, no bribes, nor art, / Efface th' Impressions of an Upright Heart."
preview | full record— Bishop, Samuel (1731-1795)