Date: 1760

"O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1760, 1776

"Fond he surveys thy mild maternal face, / His bashful eye still kindling as he views, / And, while thy lenient arm supports his pace, / With beating heart the upland path pursues: / The path that leads, where, hung sublime, / And seen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright / In Fancy's rainbow r...

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1765

"Or, greatly daring in his Country's cause, / Whose heaven-taught soul the aweful plan design'd, / Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws, / Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th'ethereal mind."

— Beattie, James (1735-1803)

Date: 1767

"In this department, reason reassumes the reins, points out and prescribes the flight of fancy, assigns the office, and determines the authority of taste, which, as we have already observed, must here be contented to act a secondary part."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"The same creative power, the same extent and force, the same impetuosity, and fire of Imagination, distinguish both almost in an equal degree; with this difference only, that the latter is permitted to range with a LOOSER rein than is indulged to the former, which, though it may dare to emulate ...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

This ideal region is indeed the proper sphere of Fancy, in which she may range with a loose rein, without suffering restraint from the severe checks of Judgment; for Judgment has very little jurisdiction in this province of Fable."

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1767

"Ordinary minds seldom rise above the dull uniform tenor of common sentiments, like those animals that are condemned to creep on the ground all the days of their life; but the most lawless excursions of an original Genius, like the flight of an eagle, are towering, though devious; its path, as th...

— Duff, William (1732-1815)

Date: 1769

"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1769

"Pox on their philosophy! Instead of demonstrating the immortality of the soul, they have plainly proved the soul is a chimæra, a will o' the wisp, a bubble, a term, a word, a nothing!"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1770

"These chronic Passions, while from real woes / They rise, and yet without the body's fault / Infest the soul, admit one only cure; / Diversion, hurry, and a restless life."

— Armstrong, John (1708/9-1779)