Date: 1767
"Ordinary minds seldom rise above the dull uniform tenor of common sentiments, like those animals that are condemned to creep on the ground all the days of their life; but the most lawless excursions of an original Genius, like the flight of an eagle, are towering, though devious; its path, as th...
preview | full record— Duff, William (1732-1815)
Date: 1768
Thoughts may "unbridled dare / Forward fly in wild career; /In their most impetuous course"
preview | full record— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)
Date: 1768
"This Winged Boy a gentle mind did bear, / As gentle as the beast [a lamb] which him up-bore, / Ne could he see th'unhappy drop a tear / But it would make his breast with pity sore, / And he himself would weep and grieve therefore."
preview | full record— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)
Date: 1769
"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)
Date: 1769
"Pox on their philosophy! Instead of demonstrating the immortality of the soul, they have plainly proved the soul is a chimæra, a will o' the wisp, a bubble, a term, a word, a nothing!"
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)
Date: 1770
"These chronic Passions, while from real woes / They rise, and yet without the body's fault / Infest the soul, admit one only cure; / Diversion, hurry, and a restless life."
preview | full record— Armstrong, John (1708/9-1779)
Date: September, 1770
"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them."
preview | full record— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years. / For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar, / On Fancy's wing, above this vale of tears."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Fancy now no more / Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies; / But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power, / Sublime from cause to cause exults to rise, / Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1772
"My Brain's disturb'd; alas! alas! I rave; / What can I do? a poor forsaken Slave! / Like Birds, that spend their little idle Rage, / And, fruitless, mourn, indignant of their Cage, / From Thought to Thought, my fluttering Spirits rove, / Betray'd to Bondage, and, ah! lost to Love."
preview | full record— Whyte, Samuel (1733-1811) [Editor]