Date: 1762
"We might spend our time in going from place to place, where none wish to see us except they find a deficiency at the card table, perpetually living among those, whose vacant minds are ever seeking after pleasures foreign to their own tastes, and pursue joys which vanish as soon as possessed."
preview | full record— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)
Date: 1762
"To me how tasteless ev’ry Scene of Joy, / The vacant Heart by happy Impulse feels / While mine, which Thoughts of genuine Grief employ, / From chearful Crowds to drear Retirement steals."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)
"A vast stock of ideas are treasured up in the memory, which it easily produces on various occasions."
preview | full record— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)
Date: 1764, 1773
"Restore thy dear idea to my breast, / The rich deposit shall the shrine secure."
preview | full record— Shenstone, William (1714-1763)
Date: 1764
"I suppose, Gentlemen, my memory, or mind, to be a chest of drawers, a kind of bureau; where, in separate cellules, my different knowlege on different subjects is stor'd."
preview | full record— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)
Date: 1764
"To this cabinet volition, or will, has a key; so when an arduous subject occurs, I unlock my bureau, pull out the particular drawer, and am supply'd with what I want in an instant."
preview | full record— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)
Date: 1770-1
"By this time the choleric vapours, which madam had jogged downwards when she let her broad bottom salute the chair with such a whack, growing warm amongst the hodg-potch they found in her store-room, which we may properly stile a hot-house, began to ascend, and take possession of their former te...
preview | full record— Bridges, Thomas (b. 1710?, d. in or after 1775)
Date: 1771
"He thinks nothing more absurd than the common notion of Instruction, as if Science were to be poured into the Mind, like water into a cistern, that passively waits to receive all that comes."
preview | full record— Harris, James (1709-1780)
Date: December 14, 1770; 1771
"He examines his own mind, and perceives there nothing of that divine inspiration, with which, he is told, so many others have been favoured. He never travelled to Heaven to gather new ideas; and he finds himself possessed of no other qualifications than what mere common sense and a plain underst...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1755, 1771
"The passions then all human virtue give, / Fill up the soul, and lend her strength to live."
preview | full record— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)