Date: 1774-1781

"When I am purified by the light of heaven my soul will become the mirrour of the world, in which I shall discern all abstruse secrets."

— Warton, Thomas, the younger (1728-1790)

Date: 1775-7

"It was this creature which confirmed me in the belief, that the partition betwixt instinct and reason was totally transparent; and that the animal and rational saw through very similar mirrors."

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

Date: 1775

"Of vulgar minds why nature shuns the praise, / And why to yours her every charm displays; / Whether the happy strokes of beauty shine / On fancy's mirror, or in HOGARTH's line; / Whether to habit, mode, or place confin'd, / Or fixt a general truth in every mind; / Discussions these will wing our...

— Shepherd, Richard (1731/2-1809)

Date: 1775

"Before the queen an oval mirror stands, / The curious labor of her active hands; / Ample its size; of wondrous texture wrought; / With pow'r endu'd, surpassing human thought."

— Rack, Edmund (1735-1787)

Date: 1775

"On this deceptive mirror FANCY gaz'd; / For in its field she saw whate'er she pleas'd: / Whate'er in thought her fertile brain design'd, / (The varying labours of her changeful mind,) / Whate'er she wills, within its orb she spies, / True to her wish the airy visions rise."

— Rack, Edmund (1735-1787)

Date: 1776-1789

"The emperor Maximus, who had advanced as far as Ravenna, to secure that important place, and to hasten the military preparations, beheld the event of the war in the more faithful mirror of reason and policy."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1777

"Parents may, perhaps, paint it to themselves: they may see (through the mirror of a sympathetic fancy) the poor widow receiving her child from the healing hand of the prophet--a child fresh blooming in the beauties of a second birth."

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

Date: 1778

"Renown'd ARCADIA, fam'd by Grecian bards, / In fancy's mirror strikes th' enraptur'd eye; / The pastures green replete with lowing herds, / Where brousing flocks, and careless shepherds lie."

— Graham, Charles (1750 ca.-1796 fl.)

Date: 1779

The mind may be veiled in darkness

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1780

"Thy simple diction, free from glaring art, / With sweet allurement steals upon the heart; / Pure as the rill, that Nature's hand refines, / A cloudless mirror of thy soul it shines"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)