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: w. 1740, 1748

"The flannel Crew / With cunning joy the fond repentance view, / Pronounce Him bless'd, his miracles proclaim, / Teach the slight croud t' adore his hallow'd name, / Exalt his praise above the Saints of old, / And coin his sinking conscience into Gold."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Date: 1752, performed 1772

"I flatter'd my poor soul that all its Fears / Were Grief's distemper'd coinage, that my Love / Rais'd causeless apprehensions, and at length / Edgar would quite forgive."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: January 28, 1753

"I have heard that his understanding was rather hurt by the absolute retirement in which he lived, and indeed he had an imagination too lively to be trusted to itself; the treasures of it were inexhaustible, but for want of commerce with mankind he made that rich oar into bright but useless medal...

— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"(If shapes like his be but the fancy's coinage)"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1760-7

"Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762

"The pleasure of a train of ideas, is the most remarkable in a reverie; especially where the imagination interposes, and is active in coining new ideas, which is done with wonderful facility."

— Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696-1782)

Date: 1765, 1770

"These baseless structures, fictions light and vain, / Coin'd in the foldings of an idle brain, / To their absurd inventors I resign, / They are not in the Church's creed, or mine."

— Wodhull, Michael (1740-1816)

Date: 1782

"The mind and conduct mutually imprint / And stamp their image in each other's mint."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: November 10, 1783

"He gives, what bankrupt Nature never can, / Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man, / Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew, / A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)