Date: 1777

"Thus oft, from shop of brain, I try / To throw the dirt and rubbish by; / But still they gain their former state, / Or leave a vacuum in the pate."

— Savage, Mary (fl. 1763-1777)

Date: 1777

"She passed the night without rest; the ideas of coaches, coronets, titles, filled her mind, and effectually murdered sleep."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778

"An exact imitation, therefore, of those pictures, is likely to fill the student’s mind with false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of his own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature and from art, from the genuine practice of the masters and the real appearances of things."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Yes, my child, thy happiness is engraved, in golden characters, upon the tablets of my heart! and their impression is indelible; for, should the rude and deep-searching hand of Misfortune attempt to pluck them from their repository, the fleeting fabric of life would give way, and in tearing from...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I had many witticisms to endure from the Branghtons, upon account of my staying so long with the Scotch mope, as they call him; but I attend to them very little, for my whole heart was filled with pity and concern."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Perhaps had I first seen you, in your kind and sympathising bosom I might have ventured to have reposed every secret of my soul; and then--but let me pursue my journal."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Though ev'ry beauty is her own, / And though her mind each virtue fills, / Anville,--to her power unknown, / Artless, strikes,--unconscious kills!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"'Oh, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'that you could but read my heart!--that you could but see the filial tenderness and concern with which it overflows! you would not then talk thus,--you would not then banish me your presence, and exclude me from your affection!'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Hasten, then, my love, to bless me with thy presence, and to receive the blessings with which my fond heart overflows!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1779, 1781

"The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the possibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)