Date: 1759
"He compared reason to the sun, of which the light is constant, uniform, and lasting; and fancy to a meteor, of bright but transitory lustre, irregular in its motion, and delusive in its direction."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1759
"From the very kind and warm Expressions of fatherly Fondness in this Letter, a small Ray of Hope darted into Lady Dellwyn's Mind."
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Date: 1759
"His mighty mind travelled round the intellectual world; and, with a more than eagle's eye, saw, and has pointed out blank spaces, or dark spots in it, on which the human mind never shone."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1759
"Few authors of distinction but have experienced something of this nature, at the first beamings of their yet unsuspected Genius on their hitherto dark Composition: The writer starts at it, as at a lucid Meteor in the night; is much surprized; can scarce believe it true"
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: w. May, 1756; 1761
"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."
preview | full record— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)
Date: 1761
"At length I wake to Reason and to thee; / Thy well-lov'd form, like the all-glorious Sun / After a gloom of horror dawns upon me, / And day breaks in on my benighted soul."
preview | full record— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)
Date: 1762-3
"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: w. 1739, 1762
Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1762
"Where, to the Beam of intellectual Day, / The genuine Charms of moral Beauty play: / With pleasing Force the strong Attractions move / Each finer Sense, and tune it into Love."
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)
Date: 1762
"Pure from th' eternal Source of Being came / That Ray divine that lights the human Frame: / Yet oft, forgetful of it's heavenly Birth, / It sinks obscur'd beneath the Weight of the Earth: / Mechanic Pow'rs retard it's Flight, and hence / The Storms of Passion, and the Clouds of Sense: / 'Tis Lif...
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)