Date: 1692
"We Truth by a Refracted ray / View, like the Sun at Ebb of day: / Whom the gross, treacherous Atmosphere / Makes where it is not, to appear."
preview | full record— Norris, John (1657-1712)
Date: w. 1740, 1748
"Thirsting for Knowledge, but to know the right, / Thro' judgment's optick guide th' illusive sight, / To let in rays on Reason's darkling cell, / And Prejudice's lagging mists dispel."
preview | full record— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)
Date: 1751
"There are few among Mankind, who have not been often struck with Admiration at the Sight of that Variety of Colours and Magnificence of Form, which appear in an Evening Rainbow. The uninstructed in Philosophy consider that splendid Object, not as dependent on any other, but as being possessed of...
preview | full record— Brown, John (1715-1766)
Date: 1755
The heart may follow the "light of sound and sincere judgment, without either cloud of prejudice or mist of passion"
preview | full record— Hooker [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]
Date: 1767
"How transitory have been all my pleasures! the recollection of them dies on my memory, like the departing colours of the rainbow, which fades under the eye of the beholder, and leaves not a trace behind."
preview | full record— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)