Date: October, 1739

"Teach me to cool my passion's fires, / Make me the judge of my desires / The master of my heart."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1738, 1739

"For tho' right Reason should her Beams display, / And dart new Lustre on our clouded Way; / Unless Philosophy, with antient Strength, / Support her Empire to Life's utmost Length; / Unless, in Passion's Spite, we dare be free, / (What Few have been, and Few will ever be) / That pristine Turn, th...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1741

"Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation, / Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation: / ''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain, / Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure, / And will rid me at last of your insolent power: / Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish, / And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish: / And while in your dust your dull ruins decay, / I'll snap off my cha...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1744

"What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power, / Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar; / Interrogates, approves, or reprehends; / And from the mass those underlings import, / From their materials sifted, and refined, / And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd, / Forms art and science, gove...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Then the inexpressive strain / Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams / Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, / And vales of bliss: the intellectual power / Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, / And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, / Sink to divine repose, and love and joy /...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Defil'd to such a depth of sordid shame / The native honours of the human soul, / Nor so effac'd the image of its sire."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: Saturday, November 17, 1750

"[F]or most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them, roll down any torrent of custom in which they happen to be caught, or bend to any importunity that bears hard against them."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"As I grew up, I too soon perceived a rancourous Disposition towards me, attended with Malice prepense, to destroy that Power I had in the Hearts of both my Parents, where I was perhaps judged to sit too triumphant, and maintained my Seat of Empire in my Mother's to her latest Moments."

— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)

Date: June, 1756

"But soul-rejoicing health again returns, / The blood meanders gentle in each vein, / The lamp of life renew'd with vigour burns, / And exil'd reason takes her seat again-- / Brisk leaps the heart, the mind's at large once more, / To love, to praise, to bless, to wonder and adore."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)