Date: Saturday, April 7, 1711

"When Adam is introduced by Milton describing Eve in Paradise, and relating to the Angel the Impressions he felt upon seeing her at her first Creation, he does not represent her like a Grecian Venus by her Shape or Features, but by the Lustre of her Mind which shone in them, and gave them their P...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: Wednesday, June 4, 1712

"It fills the Imagination with an Assemblage of such Ideas and Pictures as are hardly any thing but Shade, such as Night, the Devil, &c. These Portraitures very near over-power the Light of the Understanding, almost benight the Faculties, and give that melancholy Tincture to the most sanguine Com...

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1713, 1734

"I have been a long time distrusting my Senses; methought I saw things by a dim Light, and thro false Glasses. Now, the Glasses are removed, and a new Light breaks in upon my Understanding."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1719, 1720

"For, says he, PUNS are like so many Torch-Lights in the Head, that give the Soul a very distinct View of those Images, which she before seemed to groap after as if she had been imprisoned in a Dungeon."

— Sheridan, Thomas (1687-1738)

Date: 1732

"But this is what I foresaw, a flood of light let in at once upon the mind being apt to dazzle and disorder, rather than enlighten it."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)