Date: 1779, 1781

"A memory admitting some things and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1780

"Our hearts more free from Faction's Weeds we feel, / But they have loft the Flower of Patriot Zeal"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1781

"In his 'Night Thoughts' he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1779, 1781

"Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultivation."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1782

"Can we then deem that in those happier lands, / Where every vital energy expands; / Where Thought, the golden harvest of the mind, / Springs into rich luxuriance, unconfin'd; / That in such soils, with mental weeds o'ergrown, / The seeds of Poesy were thinly sown?"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"These foes [birds, worms, mildew] combin'd (and with them who may cope?) / Are not more hostile to the Farmer's hope, / Than Life's keen passions to that lighter grain / Of Fancy, scatter'd o'er the infant brain."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"Pleasure, the rambling Bird! the painted Jay! / May snatch the richest seeds of Verse away; / Or Indolence, the worm that winds with art / Thro' the close texture of the cleanest heart, / May, if they haply have begun to shoot, / With partial mischief wound the sick'ning root; / Or Avarice, the ...

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1782

"'Hast thou so much heart?' cried he, with emotion, "and has fortune, though it has cursed thee with the temptation of prosperity, not yet rooted from thy mind its native benevolence?"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"As woodbine weds the plants within her reach, / Rough elm, or smooth-grain'd ash, or glossy beech, / In spiral rings ascends the trunk, and lays / Her golden tassels on the leafy sprays, / But does a mischief while she lends a grace, / Straitening its growth by such a strict embrace, / So love t...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1782

"Happiest soil" may be found "in the serenest minds"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)