Date: 1748

"This observation, delivered with a profound sigh, made my heart throb with violence; a crowd of confused ideas rushed upon my imagination, which, while I endeavoured to unravel, my uncle perceived my absence of thought, and tapping me on the shoulder, said, "Oons! are you asleep, Rory!""

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1748

"This first tumult subsiding, a crowd of flattering ideas rushed upon my imagination"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1748

"I was utterly confounded at this sudden transition, which affected me more than any reverse I had formerly felt; and a crowd of incoherent ideas rushed so impetuously upon my imagination, that my reason could neither separate nor connect them;"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1747-8

"But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"If it were only, that I can see this man without losing any of that dignity (what other word can I use, speaking of myself, that betokens decency, and not arrogance?) which is so necessary to enable me to look up, or rather, with the mind's eye, I may say, to l...

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus; / While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff, / And sweat with our imagination's weight."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"She set even my heart into a palpitation--Thump, thump, thump, like a precipitated pendulum in a clock-case"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Which, by recording the principal circumstances of past facts, and laying them close together, in a continued narration, kept the mind from languishing, and gave constant exercise to its reflections."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"And that the Whole would be thereby deprived of that Variety, which is deemed the Soul of a Feast, whether mensal or mental."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"If in look, if in speech, a girl waves way to undue levity, depend upon it, the devil has got one of his cloven feet in her heart already."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)