Date: February 22, 1723

"Can the Queen / Pierce to the close recesses of the soul? / Are thoughts there visible, like children's toys / Kept in a chrystal case?"

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: June 22, 1731

"A heavy Melancholy clouds my Spirits; my Imagination is fill'd with gashly Forms of dreary Graves, and Bodies chang'd by Death,--when the pale lengthen'd Visage attracks each weeping Eye,--and fills the musing Soul, at once, with Grief and Horror, Pity and Aversion."

— Lillo, George (1691/3-1739)

Date: 1747

"Not fuller than my Head, Sir, I promise you."

— Hoadly, Benjamin (1706-1757)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"Thou look'st at me, as if thou fain would'st pry / Into my heart. 'Tis open as my speech."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"Infernal fiends, if any fiends there are / More fierce than hate, ambition, and revenge, / Rise up and fill my bosom with your fires, / And policy remorseless!"

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"Thy inspiration, Lord! / Hath fill'd his bosom with that sacred fire, / Which in the breasts of his forefathers burn'd."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"'Twas I! alas! 'twas I / That fill'd her breast with fury"

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: Performed Dec 1756, published 1757

"Sadly he says, that pity is the best, / The noblest passion of the human breast: / For when its sacred streams the heart o'erflow, / In gushes pleasure with the tide of woe; / And when its waves retire, like those of Nile, / They leave behind them such a golden soil, / That there the virtues wit...

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: 1764

"I suppose, Gentlemen, my memory, or mind, to be a chest of drawers, a kind of bureau; where, in separate cellules, my different knowlege on different subjects is stor'd."

— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)

Date: 1764

"To this cabinet volition, or will, has a key; so when an arduous subject occurs, I unlock my bureau, pull out the particular drawer, and am supply'd with what I want in an instant."

— Foote, Samuel (1720-1777)