Date: 1749

"His clouded Soul now darts no dazling Ray, / And faintly warms the animated Clay: / Not Rome's sad Ruins such Impressions leave, / As Reason bury'd in the Body's Grave:"

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1759

"He smiles contempt; as if some inward joy, / Like the sun lab'ring in a night of clouds, / Shot forth its glad'ning unresisted beams, / Chearing the face of woe."

— Murphy, Arthur (1727-1805)

Date: 1770

"But all his serious thoughts had rest in Heaven. / As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, / Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, / Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, / Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1767, 1778

"Here science, like the sun, see radiant rise, / With intellectual beam, through mental skies, / To gild, to gladden all th' improving space, / With taste, with candor, learning, sense, and grace; / To light up all the mind's remotest cells, / Where fancy fledges, and where genius dwells."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1787

"It is enough--my scruples are at an end--my prejudices, like clouds before the rising sun, vanish before the lights of your superior reason."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)