Date: 1720

"Your Guilt will stretch your Conscience on the Rack, / You'll be arraign'd, and punish'd for the Fact."

— Pennecuik, Alexander (d. 1730)

Date: 1722

"No impious Itch of Empire fires our Mind, / Nor are our Hearts to those base Thoughts inclin'd."

— Hamilton, William, of Gilbertfield (c. 1665-1751)

Date: 1725

"What silly Notions crowd the clouded Mind, / That is thro' want of Education blind!"

— Ramsay, Allan (1684-1758)

Date: 1726

"Now, th'Eternal Scheme, / That Dark Perplexity, that Mystic Maze, / Which Sight cou'd never trace, nor Heart conceive, / To Reason's Eye, refin'd, clears up apace."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Deep-roused, I feel / A sacred terror, a severe delight, / Creep through my mortal frame; and thus, me-thinks, / A voice than human more, the abstracted ear / Of fancy strikes."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Here, the soft Flocks, with that same harmless Look, / They wore alive, and ruminating still, / In Fancy's Eye; and there the frowning Bull, / And Ox half-rais'd"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1727

"Hence, thro' her nourish'd Powers, enlarged by Thee, / She soaring, spurns, with elevated Pride, / The tangling Mass of Cares, and low Desires, / That bind the fluttering Crowd; and, Angel-wing'd, / The Heights of Science and of Vertue gains, / Where all is calm and bright! with Nature round, / ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

Exhausted Nature sinks a-while to Rest, / Still interrupted by disorder'd Dreams, / That o'er the sick Imagination rise, / And in black Colours paint the mimic Scene."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

"Ye Fairy Prospects then, / Ye Beds of Roses, and ye Bowers of Joy, / Farewell! Ye Gleamings of departing Peace, / Shine out your last! The yellow-tinging Plague / Internal Vision taints, and in a Night / Of livid Gloom Imagination wraps."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728 (1733)

"Now,'tis this Dependence, which the Mind Is always conscious she has upon the Body, that engageth her in so very deep a Concern for it. For if the Mind suffer'd no Alteration in her State, from whatever Impressions might be made on it by external Objects, we have no Reason to believe, but that s...

— Campbell, Archibald (1691-1756)