Date: 1762
"Du reste, renversant, détruisant, foulant aux pieds tout ce que les hommes respectent, ils ôtent aux affligés la dernière consolation de leur misère, aux puissants & aux riches le seul frein de leurs passions; ils arrachent du fond des coeurs le remords du crime, l’espoir de la vertu, & se vante...
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778)
Date: 1763-4
A sudden slumber gently seal'd my eyes, / And wrapt my wearied limbs in soft repose; / Excursive Fancy wing'd her agile flight / Thro' the aerial mansions of the world; / Instant appear'd, portray'd upon my mind, / The fair Urania, clad in candid robe; / And bright around
preview | full record— Mr. P--y (fl. 1763)
Date: 1765
"As when the greedy fowler's snare / The birds by providence elude, / Our souls are rescu'd from despair, / And their free flight renew'd."
preview | full record— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years. / For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar, / On Fancy's wing, above this vale of tears."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1771, 1776
"Fancy now no more / Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies; / But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power, / Sublime from cause to cause exults to rise, / Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1773
"Seiz'd in thought / On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail, / From the green borders of the peopled earth, / And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant; / From solitary Mars; from the vast orb / Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk / Dances in ether like the lightest leaf; / To the dim verge,...
preview | full record— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)
Date: 1773
"But now my soul unus'd to stretch her powers / In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, / And seeks again the known accustom'd spot, / Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, / A mansion fair and spacious for its guest, / And full replete with wonders."
preview | full record— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)
Date: 1774
"As acuteness of smell carries a dog along the path of the game for which he searches, and secures him against the danger of quitting it, upon another scent: so this happy structure of imagination leads the man of genius into those tracks where the proper ideas lurk, and not only enables him to d...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"As a sprightly courser continually mends his pace, so genius, in proportion as it proceeds in its subject, acquires new force and spirit, which urges it on so vehemently, that it cannot be restrained from prosecuting it."
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)
Date: 1774
"The vigour of imagination carries it forward to invention; but understanding must always conduct it and regulate its motions. A horse of high mettle ranging at liberty, will run with great swiftness and spirit, but in an irregular track and without any fixt direction: a skilful rider makes him m...
preview | full record— Gerard, Alexander (1728-1795)