Date: 1785

"I thought to see Dan. Pope a swan, / After his soul had done with man; / And many a tuneful soul, in love, / Cooing soft couplets in a dove; / Huge elephants I thought to find / The lodgings of the learned mind; / Pindar's pure soul in Eagle mould, / And Gray's on the same perch of gold; / Hammo...

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

Date: 1785

Silence is the "Refuge of tender hearts must fear mixing "With the mad multitude, where passions fell, / And strangers to their bosom, enter wild, / Like Sin and Death in Paradise, to jar / On the soft music of according souls!"

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

Date: 1787

"Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts, / Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets-- / Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats, / That would have chirp'd away like linnets."

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

Date: 1788

"The caresses of an animal he had so long remembered, touched some chord of the heart that vibrated to softer emotions than those which had for the last three hours possessed him--he burst into tears."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1788

"Emmeline would then have taken him; but she said no; and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till Barret who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her; to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly home with Emmeline, who, extremely discompose...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"His mind resembled a finetoned instrument, whose extensive compass was capable of producing the most sublime and elevating sounds; but a fatal pressure relaxed the strings, and sunk its powerful harmony."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1794

"'Yes,' said he, with an half-suppressed sigh, 'the memory of those we love--of times for ever past! in such an hour as this steals upon the mind, like a strain of distant music in the stillness of night;--all tender and harmonious as this landscape, sleeping in the mellow moon-light.'"

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: April 20, 1796

"Ere yet we were, / Our finer tones of mind some guardian spirit / Touch'd into harmony; and, when we met, / Th' according strings struck forth a sound so sweet, / That heav'n itself might listen! love! ev'n love, / That brand of discord, burns within our bosoms, / Pale—cold—before the steady fla...

— Lee, Sophia (bap. 1750, d. 1824)

Date: 1797

"The early breeze sighing among the foliage, that waved high over the path, and the hollow dashing of distant waters, he listened to with complacency, for these were sounds which soothed yet promoted his melancholy mood; and he sometimes rested to gaze upon the scenery around him, for this too wa...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"'Behold, what is woman!' said he--'The slave of her passions, the dupe of her senses! When pride and revenge speak in her breast, she defies obstacles, and laughs at crimes!'" "Assail but her senses; let music, for instance, touch some feeble chord of her heart, and echo to her fancy, and lo! al...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)