Date: 1745
"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
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."
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— 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...
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1748
Thought is "The fire that warms the poet's brain."
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1749
"These were Esteem and Pity; for sure the most outragiously rigid among her Sex will excuse her pitying a Man, whom she saw miserable on her own Account; nor can they blame her for esteeming one who visibly from the most honourable Motives, endeavoured to smother a Flame in his own Bosom, which, ...
preview | full record— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)
Date: October 1750, 1752, 1791
"Still pouring forth executive desire, / As bright, as brisk, and lasting, as the vestal fire."
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: Tuesday, May 15, 1750
"That the maxim of Epictetus is founded on just observation will easily be granted, when we reflect, how that vehemence of eagerness after the common objects of pursuit is kindled in our minds."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)