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Date: 1761

"I have been a slave to a hopeless passion too long; I am now resolved to struggle with my chains: you, Madam, must assist me in breaking them intirely; and I make no doubt but that time, joined to my own efforts, and aided by your sweetness of disposition, your tenderness, and admirable sense, w...

— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)

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Date: 1762, 1868

"Hasten, Lord, the day of rest / From this indwelling sin, / Vindicate Thy church oppress'd, / And still enslaved within; / Burst our bonds, and let us go / From every thought of evil freed, / Pure in heart, and saints below, / And like our sinless Head."

— Wesley, John and Charles

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Date: 1763

"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: w. 1764, published 1820

"Yet, why repine? What, though by bonds confined, / Should bonds enslave the vigour of the mind?"

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

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Date: 1766

Love "leaves us not the liberty of choice; it commands in the beginning, as a master, and, reigns, afterwards, as a tyrant, till we are accustomed to its chains, by length of time; or, till they are broken by the efforts of powerful reason, or, the caprice of continued vexation."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

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Date: 1766

"Far beyond the bonds of meaning / Fancy flies, a Fairy queen!"

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

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Date: 1770

"But this faculty [Reason] has been much perverted, often to vile, and often to insignificant purposes; sometimes chained like a slave or malefactor, and sometimes soaring in forbidden and unknown regions."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

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Date: 1771

"But, Sir, my passions are my masters; they take me where they will; and oftentimes they leave to reason and to virtue nothing but my wishes and my sighs."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

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Date: 1774

"The nymph, who in my bosom reigns, / With such full force my heart enchains, / That nothing ever can impair / The empire she possesses there."

— Dibdin, Charles (bap. 1745, d. 1814)

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Date: w. c. 1751, 1775

"With darts and flames some arm his [Love's] feeble hands, / His infant brow with regal honours crown; / Whilst vanquished Reason, bound with silken bands, / Meanly submissive, falls below his throne."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.