Date: 1744, 1772, 1795
"Yet indistinct, / In vulgar bosoms, and unnotic'd lie / These pleasing stores, unless the casual force / Of things external prompt the heedless mind / To recognize her wealth."
preview | full record— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)
Date: 1743, 1745
"From the court-mint, of hearts the current coin / The pulpit presses, but the pattern drives."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1748, 1754
"The sensible Beauty, or Good, is refined from its Dross by partaking of the Moral, and the Moral receives a Stamp, a visible Character and Currency from the Sensible."
preview | full record— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)
Date: w. 1740, 1748
"The flannel Crew / With cunning joy the fond repentance view, / Pronounce Him bless'd, his miracles proclaim, / Teach the slight croud t' adore his hallow'd name, / Exalt his praise above the Saints of old, / And coin his sinking conscience into Gold."
preview | full record— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)
Date: Tuesday, August 7, 1750
"It ought, therefore, to be the care of those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1752, performed 1772
"I flatter'd my poor soul that all its Fears / Were Grief's distemper'd coinage, that my Love / Rais'd causeless apprehensions, and at length / Edgar would quite forgive."
preview | full record— Mason, William (1725-1797)
Date: 1752
"'But you understand Human Nature to the Bottom,' answered Amelia;' and your Mind is a Treasury of all ancient and modern Learning.'"
preview | full record— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)
Date: 1753
"This new domestic, whose name was Maurice, underwent, with great applause, the examination of our hero, who perceived in him, a fund of sagacity and presence of mind, by which he was excellently qualified for being the valet of an adventurer; he was therefore accommodated with a second hand suit...
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)
Date: 1754
"Our souls are stampt with God's own image, to this very end, that we should give them in tribute to him, by perfect love: 'render then to God the things that are God's'; by daily offering your whole souls up to him, by fervent acts of love; and you shall have given him your gold."
preview | full record— Challoner, Richard (1691-1781)
Date: 1754
"All these are Reason's Treasures, Stores of Thought; / Reflection's unexhausted Funds, replete / With Matter for her own delightful Task."
preview | full record— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)