Date: 1756

"Oh, God of Sleep! arise, and spread / Thy healing vapours round my head; / To thy friendly mansions take, / My soul that burns, / Till he returns, / For whom alone I wish to wake."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"They little know mankind / Who doubt its [flattery's] operation: 'tis my key, / And opes the wicket of the human heart."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: 1758

"Do not variegate the Structure of your Walls with Eubaean and Spartan Stone: but adorn both the Minds of the Citizens, and of those who govern them, by the Grecian Education."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1759

"The minds of the Schoolmen were almost as much cloistered as their bodies; they had but little learning, and few books."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

"The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"Even this Piece of Wisdom did not find its Way into his Mind by Reflexion (that Passage for its Entrance had long been too closely barricadoed), but came in at his Eyes, and engaged his constant Counsellors, his Inclinations, on the Side of a fair Object he had accidentally beheld, at the House ...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

Imitators of Nature are "Searchers into the inmost Labyrinths of the human Mind"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1759

"The man who indulges us in this natural passion, who invites us into his heart, who, as it were, sets open the gates of his breast to us, seems to exercise a species of hospitality more delightful than any other."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

The soul may be "Snatch'd by the power of music from her cell / Of fleshly thraldom" and feel "herself upborn / On plumes of ecstasy"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759

"[A]nd her Mind, at that time, might be likened to a Theatre, on which the Tragedy of a glittering Cross, and a Pair of Diamond Ear-rings, was acting, with much more Propriety than the envious Critic called Othello The Tragedy of the Handkerchief."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)