Date: Tuesday, January 8, 1751

"The old peripatetick principle, that Nature abhors a vacuum, may be properly applied to the intellect, which will embrace any thing, however absurd or criminal, rather than be wholly without an object."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, February 2, 1751

"Much of the beauty of writing is of this kind; and therefore Boileau justly remarks, that the books which have stood the test of time, and been admired through all the changes which the mind of man has suffered from the various revolutions of knowledge, and the prevalence of contrary customs, ha...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 5, 1751

"There are few books on which more time is spent by young students, than on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with more opinions which the progress of his studies and the increase of his knowledge oblig...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Saturday, February 9, 1751

"The general resemblance of the sound to the sense is to be found in every language which admits of poetry, in every author whose force of fancy enables him to impress images strongly on his own mind, and whose choice and variety of language readily supply him with just representations."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: Tuesday, February 12, 1751

"The disproportions of absurdity grow less and less visible, as we are reconciled by degrees to the deformity of a mistress; and falsehood by long use, is assimilated to the mind, as poison to the body."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1751

"For partly the Recommendation of his Person, but chiefly the Profusion of his Expences made her think him a very desireable Lover; and as she saw that his ruling Passion was Vanity, she was too good a Dissembler, and too much a Mistress of her Trade, not to flatter this Weakness for her own Ends."

— Coventry, (William) Francis Walter (1725-1753/4)

Date: 1751

"She slept longer than usual the next Morning, and it seemed as if some golden Dream was pictured in her Fancy"

— Coventry, (William) Francis Walter (1725-1753/4)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Some few there are of sordid mould, / Who barter youth and bloom for gold; / Careless with what, or whom they mate, / Their ruling passion's all for state."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"To Fancy's court we strait apply, / And wait the sentence of her eye."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The mirrour, faithful to its charge, / Reflects the virgin's soul in large."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)