Date: First performed August 4, 1787

"Ill founded precept too long has steel'd my breast--but still 'tis vulnerable-- this trial was too muc"

— Colman, George, the younger (1762-1836)

Date: w. October 27, 1777, printed 1788

"In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1788

"For me in vain is Nature drest, / While Joy's a stranger to my breast"

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1788

"Hence at each sound imagination glows; / Hence his warm lay with softest sweetness flows; / Melting it flows, pure, numerous, strong and clear, / And fills the impassioned heart and lulls the harmonious ear."

— Collins, William (1721-1759)

Date: 1788

"Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought / Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1788

"Well-tutor'd Learning, from his books / Dismiss'd with grave, not haughty looks, / Their order on his shelves exact, / Not more harmonious or compact / Than that, to which he keeps confined / The various treasures of his mind."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1788

The heart may be "often-wounded," "Renew'd and heal'd"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1780, 1788

"Nature! on thy maternal breast / For ever be his worth engrav'd!"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1788

"Worlds would I give now for that sketch of my Quintin, that my cruel brother deprived me of; but his dear image is engraven on my heart"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1788

" Blest be that pencil, every art be blest, / That stamps his image deeper on our breast!"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)