Date: 1745

"His virtue, constitutionally deep, / Has Habit's firmness, and Affection's flame; / Angels, allied, descend to feed the fire; / And Death, which others slays, makes him a god."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1746, 1753

"The time shall come--(nor far the destin'd day!) / When soul-touch'd actors shall do more, than play: / When passion, flaming, from th'asserted stage, / Shall, to taught greatness, fire a feeling age."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1746, 1753

"Bid the face, red'ning, warm'd idea take, / Strait, the soul's wildfires all obstruction break: / Stung, by inflicted thought's imagin'd pain, / Hard heave the muscles, rolling eye-balls strain: / 'Twixt the clos'd teeth, indignantly, supprest, / Or, storm-like, loud, out pours th' unguarded bre...

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1748

Thought is "The fire that warms the poet's brain."

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1749

Charles XII of Sweden has "A Frame of Adamant, a Soul of Fire, / No Dangers fright him, and no Labours tire."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: October 1750, 1752, 1791

"Still pouring forth executive desire, / As bright, as brisk, and lasting, as the vestal fire."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1751

"Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid / Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire."

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1753

"Passion! the great man's guide, the poor man's blame; / The soldier's lawrel, and the sigher's flame"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)