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)

Date: 1785

"Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul, / When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed, / Opes all the glories of the mental world, / Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune / The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk / Of feeble fancy, bid idea live, / Woo the abstracted spirit form i...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

Prejudice may take "deeper root" in "men of stronger minds"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Learning may grow beneath Disciplines care, "a thriving and vigorous plant"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Rural scenes may "nurse / The growing seeds of wisdom"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Virtue is like a "lowly creeping, modest and yet fair" plant that thrives most "where little seen"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

Man in society is like a flower: "'Tis there alone / His faculties expanded in full bloom/ Shine out"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

"Like caterpillars dangling under trees / By slender threads, and swinging in the breeze, / Which filthily bewray and sore disgrace / The boughs in which are bred the unseemly race, / While every worm industriously weaves / And winds his web about the rivell'd leaves; / So numerous are the follie...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1787

The young mind is an "opening flower" that may be beautified by cultivation

— Wallis, Hannah (fl. 1787)

Date: 1788

"For they have keen affections, kind desires, / Love strong as death, and active patriot fires; / All the rude energy, the fervid flame, / Of high-souled passions, and ingenuous shame: / Strong but luxuriant virtues boldly shoot / From the wild vigour of a savage root."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)