Date: 1771

"Grace, that with tenderness and sense combin'd / To form that harmony of soul and face, / Where beauty shines the mirror of the mind."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1772-1781

What availed the songs of a "mighty mind, / With inward light irradiate, mirror-like / Receiv'd, and to mankind with ray reflex / The sov'reign Planter's primal work display'd?"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1774

"A strong mind sees things in their true proportions; a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones."

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

Date: 1774

"A learned parson, rusting in his cell, at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well upon the nature of man; will profoundly analyze the head, the heart, the reason, the will, the passions, the senses, the sentiments, and all those subdivisions of we know not what; and yet, unfortunately, h...

— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)

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)