Date: 1738, 1739

"The Mind, a Blank, when Life begins to flow, / But without Knowledge capable to know, / The God of Nature to our Care commits; / As to the Press we send th' unsully'd Sheets."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"And as with Milton's Numbers, or with mine, / Those Sheets come forth, as Corbet may enjoin; / So Education on the Mind imprints / Sublime Ideas, or low trivial Hints."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"For tho' right Reason should her Beams display, / And dart new Lustre on our clouded Way; / Unless Philosophy, with antient Strength, / Support her Empire to Life's utmost Length; / Unless, in Passion's Spite, we dare be free, / (What Few have been, and Few will ever be) / That pristine Turn, th...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Then 'tis not all--with Notions to be fraught, / By Fancy coin'd, or by the Senses caught."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Reason, like Virtue, comes but with her Shade."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Minds are the Soil, and Precepts are the Seeds: / The richer That, the ranker are the Weeds, / If Weeds it bear: But well repay'd the Toil, / That sows pure Virtue on a fertile Soil."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Like Twigs, entrusted to the Planter's Pains, / Who prunes, engrafts, indulges, or restrains, / Till in the Garden Ornament they yield, / And Fruit, which else had cumber'd up the Field: / Or that rich Ore we from the Indies bring, / Which bears, refin'd, the Image of the King; / But mix'd for-e...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1742

"Thus on soft sophas in her cave reclin'd, / Slept the fam'd goddess of the leaden mind."

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1744

"The witnesses are heard; the cause is o'er; / Let Conscience file the sentence in her court, / Dearer than deeds that half a realm convey."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"These flattering scenes / To this neglected labour court my song; / Yet not unconscious what a doubtful task / To paint the finest features of the mind, / And to most subtile and mysterious things / Give colour, strength, and motion."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)