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)

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)

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)

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)

Date: 1794

"I would not shackle you with fetters of suspicion; I would have you governed by justice and reason."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1810

"Kindness can woo the Lion from his den, / A moral teaching to the sons of men; / His mighty heart in silken bonds can draw, / And bend his nature to sweet Pity's law."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)