Date: 1747

"These shall the fury Passions tear, / The vultures of the mind, / Disdainful Anger, pallid Fear, / And Shame that skulks behind."

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1747-8

Imaginations may be "un-reined"

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

Date: 1747-8

"Then how my heart began again to play its pug's tricks!"

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

Date: 1747-8

"The window was open. Away the troublesome bosom-visiter [Conscience], the intruder, is flown."

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

Date: 1747-8

"Each mole-hill thought swells to a huge Olympus; / While we, fantastic dreamers, heave and puff, / And sweat with our imagination's weight."

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

Date: 1749

People may "Bridle their passions and direct their will"

— Stepney, George (1663-1707)

Date: 1749

"These were Esteem and Pity; for sure the most outragiously rigid among her Sex will excuse her pitying a Man, whom she saw miserable on her own Account; nor can they blame her for esteeming one who visibly from the most honourable Motives, endeavoured to smother a Flame in his own Bosom, which, ...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

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

"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750

"No man has ever been drawn to crimes by love or jealousy, envy or hatred, but he can tell how easily he might at first have repelled the temptation, how readily his mind would have obeyed a call to any other object, and how weak his passion has been after some casual avocation, till he has recal...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)