Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1712

"Several of these little Hollows were stuffed with innumerable sorts of Trifles, which I shall forbear giving any particular Account of, and shall therefore only take Notice of what lay first and uppermost, which, upon our unfolding it and applying our Microscopes to it, appeared to be a Flame-co...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Saturday, March 29, 1712

"As Poetry delights in cloathing abstracted Ideas in Allegories and sensible Images, we find a magnificent Description of the Creation form'd after the same manner in one of the Prophets, wherein he describes the Almighty Architect as measuring the Waters in the Hollow of his Hand, meting out the...

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: Thursday, May 15, 1712

"It is extremely natural for us to desire to see such our Thoughts put into the Dress of Words, without which indeed we can scarce have a clear and distinct Idea of them our selves: When they are thus clothed in Expressions, nothing so truly shews us whether they are just or false, as those Effec...

— Budgell, Eustace (1686-1737)

Date: 1712

"She [the mind] draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain, / Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train, / Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare, / Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1716

"We are gratify'd to see an unexpected Idea presented to our Understanding, and wonder at the beautiful Conjunction of Notions so separate and remote before; and whatever is marvellous is delightful too; as we always feel a Pleasure at the sight of Foreigners and their Garments, so the Mind rejoi...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1717

"The nymph her graces here express'd may find, / And by this picture learn to dress her mind."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1718

"Tropes at first, in the rude Times of the World, us'd for Necessity, were soon found to be Ornamental, and to give Strength and Gracefulness to the Turn of Men's Thoughts: As Garments first put on for the necessary Defence of the Body against the Severities of the Weather, were quickly f...

— Blackwall, Anthony (bap. 1672, d. 1730)

Date: 1713, 1719

"For in our Youth we commonly dress our Thoughts in the Mirrour of Self-Flattery, and expect that Heaven, Fortune, and the World, should cajole our Follies, as we do our own, and lay all Faults on others, and all Praise on our selves."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: April 18, 1721

"If, after Death, our Forms (as some believe) / Shall be transparent, naked every Thought, / And Friends meet Friends, and read each other's Hearts, / Thou'lt know one day, that thou wast held most dear. / Farewel."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: Friday, April 17. 1724

"Their Imaginations are thin, and delicate; and play lightly on the Skirts of Objects: But they are too weak for solid Reasoning; and, in any Thing abstracted, and above the Pitch of the Senses, they are miserably Impotent, and grow presently weary."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)