Date: Tuesday, August 7, 1750
"It ought, therefore, to be the care of those who wish to pass the last hours with comfort, to lay up such a treasure of pleasing ideas, as shall support the expenses of that time, which is to depend wholly upon the fund already acquired."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
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...
preview | full record— Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth (1718-1800)
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."
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: January 12, 1760
"To fix deeply in the mind the principles of science, to settle their limitations, and deduce the long succession of their consequences; to comprehend the whole compass of complicated systems, with all the arguments, objections, and solutions, and to reposite in the intellectual treasury the numb...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1777, 1793
"A prisoner in--Impossible!--I sleep: / 'Tis fancy's coinage; 'tis a dream's delusion."
preview | full record— Dodd, William (1729-1777)
Date: 1777, 1793
"Twas but a coinage vain / Of the distemper'd fancy! Gone, 'tis gone,"
preview | full record— Dodd, William (1729-1777)
Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792
"Yet are there some who think (but what a shame!) / Poor people's souls like pence of Birmingham, / Adulterated brass--base stuff--abhorr'd-- / That never can pass current with the Lord; / And think because of wealth they boast a store, / With ev'ry freedom they may treat the poor."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1787
"But let me give his m*****y a hint, / Fresh from my brain's prolific mint."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1790
"Men are caught indeed by the effusions of a brilliant fancy and bright imagination; but its refulgence and flashes, like the coruscations of the diamond, serve only to sparkle in the eye of the beholder, and to dazzle his sight, without further use or advantage to any one: whereas practical good...
preview | full record— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)
Date: 1792
"Could gold once give thee to my eager arms, / Lo, into guineas would I coin my heart;"
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)