Date: 1728

"Ye Fairy Prospects then, / Ye Beds of Roses, and ye Bowers of Joy, / Farewell! Ye Gleamings of departing Peace, / Shine out your last! The yellow-tinging Plague / Internal Vision taints, and in a Night / Of livid Gloom Imagination wraps."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

"A Lover, when he is admitted to Cards, ought to be solemnly silent, and observe the Motions of his Mistress. He must laugh when she laughs, sigh when she sighs. In short, he shou'd be the Shadow of her Mind."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1728

"From what rich Fountain flow / Those ripening Beams of intellectual Day?"

— Pattison, William (1706-1727)

Date: 1728

"How Reason's Lamp burns with incessant Toil, / To light the Judgment, and to guide the Will?"

— Pattison, William (1706-1727)

Date: 1729

"Reason exerts her pure, celestial, Rays, / To guide our Steps thro' Errors weary Maze: / But upstart Passions mount her rightful Throne, / And blindly push our vanquish'd Judgment on."

— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)

Date: 1730

"No light the darkness of that mind invades, / Where Chaos rules, enshrin'd in genuine Shades;"

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1730

A "mimic gleam of transient light" may break through the gloom of dullness "and then they think they write"

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1730

"Whether we send our Reason's piercing Rays / Beneath the Great, unbounded Deep, / Where Storms and Tempests sleep, / Whether unrein'd Imagination strays / Thro' the black, Howling Desart's pathless Ways, / The Deep and Howling Wilderness declare / The Omnipresent Godhead there."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

Date: 1730

"Whether amid the Gloom we stray, / And send our Intellectual Ray / Up to the pure, cærulean Plains on high, / There all the Glories of the Sky, / As round the liquid Space / They run their bright, ætherial Race."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)

Date: 1730

"As thus we talk'd, / Our hearts would burn within us, would inhale / That portion of divinity, that ray / Of purest Heaven, which lights the glorious flame / Of patriots, and of heroes."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)