Date: 1742

"A night that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, / And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, / Long-rifled Life of sweet can yield no more, / But from our comment on the comedy, / Pleasing reflections on parts well-sustain'd, / Or purposed emendations where we fail'd, / Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, / When, on their exit, sou...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Where virtue, rising from the awful depth / Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake / The unadorn'd condition of her birth; / And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues, / Assumes a various feature, to attract, / With charms responsive to each gazer's eye, / The hearts of men."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"What? like a storm from their capacious bed / The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might / Of these eruptions, working from the depth / Of man's strong apprehension, shakes his frame / Even to the base; from every naked sense / Of pain or pleasure dissipating all / Opinion's feeble coverings...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Moreover, from without / When oft the same society of forms / In the same order have approach'd his mind, / He deigns no more their steps with curious heed / To trace; no more their features or their garb / He now examines; but of them and their / Condition, as with some diviner's tongue, / Affi...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1747-8

"Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: August 12, 1738, to Nov. 1, 1739 [1748]

"Therefore the Eyes of my Understanding are not yet open'd, but the Old Veil is still upon my Heart."

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: Saturday, November 10, 1750

"It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious benevolence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1754

"Maecenas would laugh at any Irregularity in Horace's Dress, but not at any Caprice in his Behaviour, because it was common and fashionable: so a Man's Person, which is the Dress of his Soul, only is ridiculed, while the vicious Qualities of it escape."

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1754

"Bred to think as well as speak by rote, they furnish their minds, as they furnish their houses or cloath their bodies, with the fancies of other men, and according to the mode of the age and country."

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)