Date: 1735-6

"In the soft plunder came that worst of plagues, / That pestilence of mind, a fever'd thirst / For the false joys which Luxury prepares."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"See! the full board / That steams disgust, and bowls that give no joy; / No truth invited there, to feed the mind; / Nor wit, the wine-rejoicing reason quaffs."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

The young mind may be fed impurities and bloated with "scholastic jargon" or it may be "fill'd and nourish'd by the light of truth"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"Whatever fancy paints, invention pours, / Judgment digests, the well tuned bosom feels, / Truth natural, moral, or divine, has taught, / The virtues dictate, or the Muses sing."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"When in the Hall of Smoke they congress hold, / And the sage berry, sun-burnt Mocha bears, / Has clear'd their inward eye: then, smoke-enroll'd, / Their oracles break forth mysterious as of old."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"But more he search'd the mind, and roused from sleep / Those moral seeds whence we heroic actions reap."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"But here, instead, is foster'd every ill, / Which or distemper'd minds or bodies know."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1762

"'Rest thou,' I said, 'behind my shield; rest in peace, thou beam of light! the gloomy chief of Sora will fly, if Fingal's arm is like his soul."

— Ossian; Macpherson, James (1736-1796)

Date: 1765

"Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray, / The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind, / And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray / Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"'Fancy enervates, while it sooths, the heart, / 'And, while it dazzles, wounds the mental sight: / 'To joy each heightening charm it can impart, / 'But wraps the hour of wo in tenfold night."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)