Date: 1788

"So have I heard / The captive finch, in narrow cage confin'd, / Charm all his woe away with cheerful song, / Which might have melted e'en a heart of steel / To give him liberty"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1788

"What glittering adders lurk to sting the mind!"

— Richardson, Joseph (1755-1803)

Date: 1780, 1788

"In that bright day, whose wonders blind / The eye of the astonish'd mind; / When life's glad angel shall resume / His ancient sway"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1788

"I would not hear / Aught else disturb the silent reign of death, / Save the dull ticking of a lazy clock. / That calls me home, and leads the pious soul / Through mazes of reflection, till she feels / For whom and why she lives"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1788-89

"According to Mr. Locke, the soul is a mere rasa tabula, an empty recipient, a mechanical blank."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"According to Plato, she [the soul] is an ever-written tablet, a plenitude of forms, a vital and intellectual energy."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"On the former system, she [the soul] is on a level with the most degraded natures, the receptacle of material species, and the spectator of delusion and non-entity."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

The soul is "Like a man between sleeping and waking, her visions are turbid and confused, and the phantoms of a material night, continually glide before her drowsy eye."

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"But on the latter system [Plato's], the soul is the connecting medium of an intelligible and sensible nature, the bright repository of all middle forms, and the vigilant eye of all cogitative reasons"

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)

Date: 1788-89

"At first, indeed, before she is excited by science, she is oppressed with lethargy, and clouded with oblivion; but in proportion as learning and enquiry stimulate her dormant powers, she wakens from the dreams of ignorance, and opens her eye to the irradiations of wisdom"

— Taylor, Thomas (1758-1835)