Date: 1702

"For a Comick Poet is obliged to put off himself, and transform himself into his several Characters; to enter into the Foibles of his several persons, and all the Recesses and secret turns of their minds, and to make their Passions, their Interests, and their Concern his own."

— Dennis, John (1658-1734)

Date: 1704

"For the warmer the Imagination is, the less able we are to Reflect, and consequently the things are the more present to us of which we draw the Images; and therefore when the Imagination is so inflam'd as to render the Soul utterly incapable of reflecting there is no difference between the Image...

— Dennis, John (1658-1734)