Date: 1782

"These foes [birds, worms, mildew] combin'd (and with them who may cope?) / Are not more hostile to the Farmer's hope, / Than Life's keen passions to that lighter grain / Of Fancy, scatter'd o'er the infant brain."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"Pleasure, the rambling Bird! the painted Jay! / May snatch the richest seeds of Verse away; / Or Indolence, the worm that winds with art / Thro' the close texture of the cleanest heart, / May, if they haply have begun to shoot, / With partial mischief wound the sick'ning root; / Or Avarice, the ...

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"'Hast thou so much heart?' cried he, with emotion, "and has fortune, though it has cursed thee with the temptation of prosperity, not yet rooted from thy mind its native benevolence?"

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

Date: 1782

"As woodbine weds the plants within her reach, / Rough elm, or smooth-grain'd ash, or glossy beech, / In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays / Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays, / But does a mischief while she lends a grace, / Straitening its growth by such a strict embrace, / So love t...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"Happiest soil" may be found "in the serenest minds"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"Peace be to those (such peace as earth can give,) / Who live in pleasure, dead even while they live; / Born capable indeed of heavenly truth, / But down to latest age from earliest youth, / Their mind a wilderness through want of care, / The plough of wisdom never entering there."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1783

"Weeds in abundance spring up in a piece of ground which is neglected; -- so do naughty dispositions in an uncultivated mind."

— Fenn [née Frere], Ellenor (1744-1813)

Date: 1784, 1804

"When this is the case the hedge (to our feelings) is broken down, and we lie exposed to every temptation; as says the Psalmist--'Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they that pass by the way do pluck her?' Psal. lxxx. 12"

— Huntington, William (1745-1813)

Date: 1784

The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours / Smil'd on the rugged path I'm doom'd to tread, / And still with sportive hand has snatch'd wild flowers, / To weave fantastic garlands for my head: / But far, far happier is the lot of those / Who never learn'd her dear delusive art; / Which, while i...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1784

"Not death itself thine empire can destroy; / Towards thee, even then, we turn the languid eye; / Still trust in thee to bid our memory bloom, / And scatter roses round the silent tomb."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)