Date: 1710

"But thy unerring Hands, with matchless Art / Have shewn my Eyes th'Impression in my Heart;"

— Congreve, William (1670-1729)

Date: w. before 1717? (first published 1989)

"But he who servily can wish or grieve / For that which is not in his powr to give / Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great / the strongest shield we can oppose to fate / letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves / Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1718, 1747

"A piece of sculpture admirably wrought is put out to view, but, to preserve it against the injuries of the weather, or for some other reason, is varnished over. Every body extols the artist, and is pleased with his work; and yet no one sees that which was the immediate subject of his art, being ...

— Grove, Henry (1684-1738)

Date: 1751

"Surely, says I, this ought to be engraven on Brass, as I wish it was on my Heart"

— Paltock, Robert (1697-1767)

Date: 1751

"I am here, thought I, like a poor condemned Criminal, who knows his Execution is fixed for such a Day, nay such an Hour, and dies over and over in Imagination, and by the Torture of his Mind, till that Hour comes"

— Paltock, Robert (1697-1767)

Date: 1751

"This Speech, I own, gave me the first Reflection I ever had in my Life, and lock'd up all my Faculties for a long Time; nor was I able, for the Variety of Ideas that crowded my Brain, to make a Word of Answer, but stood like an Image of Stone"

— Paltock, Robert (1697-1767)

Date: 1757

"Behold, thro' fancy's mirrour, what a scene / The phantom opens, ample, wide, and fair, / Each golden minute, bearing as it flies / Imaginary raptures on its wing; / Flatt'ring my fond deluded heart with dreams / Of lasting pleasure--but alas, how soon / This fairy Eden to a waste is turn'd?"

— Hervey, James (1714-1758)

Date: 1776

"Yet in such pursuits great moderation is requisite, lest the mind too freely rove, and idly indulge itself in the airy wilds of fancy, to the neglect of real science and useful improvement."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1776

"In short, he ranges, with curious attention, through the wide regions of truth; noting the different steps, that lead to it, by converging lines, and carefully distinguishing the false lights of fancy or passion from the cooler investigations of the reasoning faculties."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1776

"If you really then think that, every process, termed mental, in man, is in fact nothing more than so many distinct nervous vibrations, then I readily grant that matter may think, for undoubtedly every stretched cord, when touched, will vibrate; and I will farther grant, that a fiddle, in that se...

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)