Date: 1754

"Solitude now was all he sought, and dismissing his Companions, on Pretence of private Business, he retired to his Chamber to indulge his new Meditations, there making a Mirror of his Mind, he contemplated the Image of the beauteous Cressida; his raptured Fancy dwelt upon the inchanting Look she ...

— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: w. 1739, 1762

"Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd, / How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude / Appears the painted Cheat."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1766

"For Brag [a card game] most wisely was design'd, / To shew each pimple of the mind, / The faithful mirror of the heart, / Each lurking foible to impart."

— Jemmat [née Yeo], Catherine (bap. 1714, d. 1766?)

Date: 1777

"As it is the character of Genius to penetrate with a lynx's beam into unfathomable abysses and uncreated worlds, and to see what is not, so it is the property of good sense to distinguish perfectly, and judge accurately what really is."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1782

"Wisdom, blest beam! / The brightness of the everlasting light! / The spotlesss mirror of the pow'r of GOD! / The reflex image of th' all-perfect mind!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1785

"In thy mild rhetoric dwells a social love / Beyond my wild conceptions, optics false!/ Thro' which I falsely judg'd of polish'd life"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1786

"There was a time when my feelings gave the lie to their assertions; and holding the mirror of fancy before my eyes, shew'd me the future, in the happy present."

— Lee, Harriet (1757/8-1851)

Date: 1788

"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1788

"Whene'er to Afric's shores I turn my eyes, / Horrors of deepest, deadliest guilt arise; / I see, by more than Fancy's mirror shewn, / The burning village, and the blazing town."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)