Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"From the wise be far / Such gross unhallow'd pride; nor needs my song / Descend so low; but rather now unfold, / If human thought could reach, or words unfold, / By what mysterious fabric of the mind, / The deep-felt joys and harmony of sound / Result from airy motion; and from shape / The lovel...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Men learn to judge of beauty, and acquire / Those forms set up, as idols in the soul / For love and zealous praise."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1751

"If any Man hath found out a Kind of Motive which doth not affect himself, he hath made a deeper Investigation into the 'Springs, Weights, and Balances' of the human Heart, than I can pretend to."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1751

"Thus a lively Imagination and unperceived Self-Love, fetter the Heart in certain ideal Bonds of their own creating: Till at length some turbulent and furious Passion arising in its Strength, breaks these fantastic Shackles which Fancy had imposed, and leaps to its Prey like a Tyger chained by Co...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1755

"Why did I not / Repent, while yet my Crimes were decibel! / Ere they had struck their Colours thro' my Soul, / As black as Night or Hell!"

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1789

"[I]t follows that motives, volitions, and actions, are all the definite effects of definite causes, and that they are all links of that // ---- "golden everlasting chain, / Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main."

— Belsham, William (1752-1827)

Date: November 10, 1813

"I by no means rank poetry or poets high in the scale of intellect. This may look like affectation, but it is my real opinion. It is the lava of the imagination whose eruptions prevents an earthquake."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"[I]n that Tale I find / The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears, / Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"But men's thoughts were the steps which paved thy throne, / Their admiration thy best weapon shone."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)

Date: 1816

"Conquerors and Kings, / Founders of sects and systems, to whom add / Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things / Which stir too strongly the soul's secret springs, / And are themselves the fools to those they fool."

— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)