Date: 1748, 1749

"As the string of a violin or harpsichord trembles and vibrates, so the fibres or strings of the brain struck by the undulating rays of sound, are excited to return or repeat the words that touched them."

— Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-1751)

Date: w. 1742-1750, 1803

"Ne ought with him availeth sexe or age; / Ne hoary elde, ne tender infant's cries / Can melt his iron heart in any wise"

— Cambridge, Richard Owen (1717-1802)

Date: 1750

Vain doubts and groundless fears tear the foolish bosom and preced the "rising storm"

— Eusden, Laurence (1688-1730)

Date: 1750

"or, as a certain very eminent Author well observes, Fools having generally stronger Nerves, and less volatile Spirits, than Men of fine Understandings, that which will rouse the one, will make the other either stupid or frantick; and tho' it sometimes, while the Fit continues, strengthens the Im...

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

Date: 1750

"For then, tho' I cannot give you my Heart, I shall have given you a Title to it, and you will have a lawful Claim to its Allegiance"

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

Date: October 1750, 1752, 1791

"The less the body to the view, / The soul (like springs in closer durance pent) / Is all exertion, ever new, / Unceasing, unextinguish'd, and unspent"

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: October 1750, 1752, 1791

"Still pouring forth executive desire, / As bright, as brisk, and lasting, as the vestal fire."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Hail, wond'rous Being, who in pow'r supreme / Exists from everlasting, whose great Name / Deep in the human heart, and every atom, / The Air, the Earth or azure Main contains, / In undecypher'd characters is wrote."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"O what can words, / The weak interpreters of mortal thoughts, / Or what can thoughts (tho' wild of wing they rove / Thro' the vast concave of th'aetherial round) / If to the Heav'n of Heavens they'd win their way / Advent'rous, like the birds of night they're lost, / And delug'd in the flood of ...

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"'Tis then, nor sooner, that the restless mind / Shall find itself at home; and like the ark / Fix'd on the mountain-top, shall look-aloft / O'er the vague passage of precarious life; / And, winds and waves and rocks and tempests past, / Enjoy the everlasting calm of Heav'n."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)