Date: 1781

"His temper was, in consequence of the dominion of his passions, uncertain and capricious: he was easily engaged, and easily disgusted; but he is accused of retaining his hatred more tenaciously than his benevolence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"He [Young] plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"In his 'Night Thoughts' he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"Gold hath steeled your hearts"

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: 1781

"May God write it upon all your hearts!"

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: 1779, 1781

"Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultivation."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: August 1783

"Death broke at once the vital chain, / And free'd his soul the nearest way."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: April, 1783

If human souls are of an essence pure, / How fix ideas in them to endure? / And if material, canst not thou, Monro, / The little cells of our ideas show?"

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"He gives a curious system of the instrument of Memory, which he says is the last or inner ventricle of the brain, whereas the first or outer ventricles are the instruments of perception or thought. He affirms that, according as you hurt one or other of thole instruments, you destroy either of th...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: April, 1783

"When we talk of a storehouse of our ideas, we are only forming an imagination of something similar to an enclosed portion of space in which material objects are reposited. But who ever actually saw this storehouse, or can have any clear perception of it when he endeavours by thinking closely to ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)