Date: 1737 (also 1738, 1743, reprinted 1754)

"Curst with such souls of base alloy, / As can possess, but not enjoy, / Debarr'd the pleasure to impart / By av'rice, sphincter of the heart, / Who wealth, hard earn'd by guilty cares, / Bequeath untouch'd to thankless heirs."

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737)

Date: 1737

"My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1739

"May all English Lads, like you, Boys, / Prove on Shore true Hearts of Gold; / To their King and Country true"

— Phillips, Edward (b. 1708/9)

Date: 1739

"Nor old Sir H***s, whose Soul is plung'd in Oar, / That Gold can't shut the Grave against Fourscore. "

— Miller, James (1704-1744)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Like Twigs, entrusted to the Planter's Pains, / Who prunes, engrafts, indulges, or restrains, / Till in the Garden Ornament they yield, / And Fruit, which else had cumber'd up the Field: / Or that rich Ore we from the Indies bring, / Which bears, refin'd, the Image of the King; / But mix'd for-e...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1739

"More hard than Marble is my Heart, / And foul with Sins of deepest Stain: / But Thou the mighty Saviour art, / Nor flow'd thy cleansing Blood in vain. / Ah! soften, melt this Rock, and may / Thy Blood wash all these Stains away."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1739

"My GOD, what is a Human Heart? / Silver or Gold, or precious Stone; / Or Star, or Rainbow; or a Part / Of All, or all thy World in One?"

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1739

"To usher forth the Virtues of the Mind! / From Nature's Chain, from Earthly Dross set free, / One only Appetite remained in Thee."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1740

"This Work, I say, shall not only contain the various Impressions of my Mind, (as in Louis the Fourteenth his Cabinet you have seen the growing Medals of his Person from Infancy to Old Age,) but shall likewise include with them the Theatrical History of my Own Time, from my first Appearance on th...

— Cibber, Colley (1671-1757)

Date: 1742

"[H]e bewailed her Loss with Groans, which would have pierced any Heart but those which are possessed by some People, and are made of a certain Composition not unlike Flint in its Hardness and other Properties; for you may strike Fire from them which will dart through the Eyes, but they can never...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)