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

"BUT yonder breathing Prospect bids the Muse / Throw all her Beauty forth, that Daubing all / Will be to what I gaze; for who can paint / Like Nature? Can Imagination boast / Amid his gay Creation Hues like Her's? / And can He mix them with that matchless Skill, / And lay them on so delicately sw...

— 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: 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: January 1739

"On the other hand, impressions and passions are susceptible of an entire union, and, like colours, may be blended so perfectly together, that each of them may lose itself, and contribute only to vary that uniform impression which arises from the whole."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: September 17, 1739

"There are different ways of examining the Mind as well as the Body. One may consider it either as an Anatomist or as a Painter; either to discover its most secret Springs & Principles or to describe the Grace & Beauty of its Actions."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1745

"And, in my Opinion, we have as much need of the Hand of Culture to call forth our latent Powers, to direct their Exercise; in fine, to shape and polish us into Men, as the unformed Block has of the Craver or Statuary's Skill, to draw it out of that rude State, into the Form and Proportions of a ...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1746

"While there with thee the enchanted round I walk, / The regulated wild, gay Fancy then / Will tread in thought the groves of attic land; / Will from thy standard taste refine her own, / Correct her pencil to the purest truth / Of Nature, or, the unimpassion'd shades / Forsaking, raise it to the ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1746

"For me, when I forget the darling theme, / Whether the blossom blows, the summer-ray / Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams; / Or Winter rises in the blackening east; / Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more, / And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1748

"[U]nless my image had been engraven on her heart, it would have been impossible to know me for the person who had worn her aunt's livery"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)