Date: 1780, 1788

"Authority! unfeeling power, / Whose iron heart can coldly doom / The Debtor, dragg'd from Pleasure's bower, / To sicken in the dungeon's gloom."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

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

"With horns, and tail, and hoofs that make folks start; / And in my breast a millstone for a heart!"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1788

"Ah! think not, WHITE, the Muse from fancy brings / Those woes, for Hist'ry sanctions what she sings, / Her bloody Annals still does Truth unfold, / Stain'd with the victims of soul-spotting gold."

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

Date: June, 1788

"Think, ye masters, iron-hearted, / Lolling at your jovial boards, / Think how many backs have smarted / For the sweets your cane affords."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1788

"When Passion's tides thro' mans' strong art'ries roar, / His heart resists them like a flinty shore; / But our frail frames, like mould'ring banks, give way."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1789, 1794

"In every cry of every Man / In every Infants cry of fear / In every voice; in every ban / The mind-forg'd manacles I hear."

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1789

"Deceiving gold was once my only toy, / With it my soul within the coffer lay"

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1789

"Contrive me, Artisan, a Bowl / Of Silver ample as my Soul"

— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)