Date: 1777

"Parents may, perhaps, paint it to themselves: they may see (through the mirror of a sympathetic fancy) the poor widow receiving her child from the healing hand of the prophet--a child fresh blooming in the beauties of a second birth."

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

Date: 1777

"As it is the character of Genius to penetrate with a lynx's beam into unfathomable abysses and uncreated worlds, and to see what is not, so it is the property of good sense to distinguish perfectly, and judge accurately what really is."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1778

"Renown'd ARCADIA, fam'd by Grecian bards, / In fancy's mirror strikes th' enraptur'd eye; / The pastures green replete with lowing herds, / Where brousing flocks, and careless shepherds lie."

— Graham, Charles (1750 ca.-1796 fl.)

Date: 1779

The mind may be veiled in darkness

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1780

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

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1781

Fancy may never "view a shape of lovelier kind / In the bright mirror of her Shakespeare's mind."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1781

"The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirrour in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1782

"Where'er that Parent of engaging thought, / Warm Sensibility, like light, has taught / The bright'ning mirror of the mind to shew / Nature's reflected forms in all their glow."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"We now perceive every [idea], as it passes, through a small aperture separately, as in the camera obscura, and this we call time; but at the conclusion of this state we may probably exist in a manner quite different; the window may be thrown open, the whole prospect appear at one view, and all t...

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1782

"Wisdom, blest beam! / The brightness of the everlasting light! / The spotlesss mirror of the pow'r of GOD! / The reflex image of th' all-perfect mind!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)