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;...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1770

"The captious turn of an habitual wrangler deadens the understanding, sours the temper, and hardens the heart: by rendering the mind suspicious, and attentive to trifles, it weakens the sagacity of instinct, and extinguishes the fire of imagination; it transforms conversation into, a state of war...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"Pursue, poor imp, th' imaginary charm, / Indulge gay Hope, and Fancy's pleasing fire: / Fancy and Hope too soon shall of themselves expire."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"To the pure soul by Fancy's fire refined, / Ah what is mirth but turbulence unholy, / When with the charm compared of heavenly melancholy!"

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"The gloomy race / 'By Indolence and moping Fancy bred, / 'Fear, Discontent, Solicitude give place, / 'And Hope and Courage brighten in their stead, / 'While on the kindling soul her vital beams are shed."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1771, 1776

"But She, who set on fire his infant heart, / And all his dreams, and all his wanderings shared / And bless'd, the Muse, and her celestial art, / Still claim th' Enthusiast's fond and first regard."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1755, 1771

"In every human breast there lives enshrined / Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind; / Some plastic power, some intellectual ray, / Some genial sunbeam from the source of day; / Something that, warm and restless to aspire, / Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire, / And bids us al...

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)

Date: 1755, 1771

"Strong and more strong the light celestial shines, / Each thought ennobles, and each sense refines, / Till all the soul, full opening to the flame, / Exalts to virtue what she felt for fame."

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)

Date: 1755, 1771

"The' etherial soul that Heaven itself inspires / With all its virtues, and with all its fires, / Led by these sirens to some wild extreme, / Sets in a vapour when it ought to beam; / Like a Dutch sun that in the' autumnal sky / Looks through a fog, and rises but to die."

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)

Date: 1772, 1810

"His vital spark her earthly cell forsook, / And into air her fleeting progress took."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)