Date: 1781
"He [Young] plays, indeed, only on the surface of life; he never penetrates the recesses of the mind, and therefore the whole power of his poetry is exhausted by a single perusal; his conceits please only when they surprise."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: February 19, 1798
"Whether material substance unrefined, / Owns the strong impulse of instinctive mind, / Which to one centre points diverging lines, / Confounds, refracts, invig'rates, and combines?"
preview | full record— Frere, John Hookham (1769-1846)