Date: 1727

"The common Fluency of Speech in many Men, and most Women, is owing to a Scarcity of Matter, and a Scarcity of Words; for whoever is a Master of Language, and hath a Mind full of Ideas, will be apt, in speaking, to hesitate upon the Choice of both; whereas common Speakers have only one Set of Ide...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1729

"Then the good easy man, whom reason rules; / Rouz'd by bold insult, and injurious rage, / With sharp, and sudden check, th' astonish'd sons / Of violence confounds; firm as his cause, / His bolder heart; in awful justice clad; / His eyes effulging a peculiar fire: / And, as he charges thro' the ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. 1737, published 1738

"But when no Prelate's Lawn with Hair-shirt lin'd, / Is half so incoherent as my Mind, / When (each Opinion with the next at strife, / One ebb and flow of follies all my Life) / I plant, root up, I build, and then confound, / Turn round to square, and square again to round."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1739

"O I will / Of private Passions all my Soul divest, / And take my dearer Country to my Breast."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"For, as I have heard you, my best Tutor, often observe, the Peculiarities of Habit, where a Person aims at something fantastick, or out of Character, are an undoubted Sign of a wrong Head: For such an one is so kind, as always to hang out on his Sign, what sort of Furniture he has in his Shop, t...

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"Now supposing those stockings of Sir John's endued with some degree or consciousness at every particular darning, they would have been sensible that they were the same individual pair of stockings both before and after the darning; and this sensation would have continued in them through all the ...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1742

"Of this number I could name a Peer no less elevated by Nature than by Fortune, who whilst he wears the noblest Ensigns of Honour on his Person, bears the truest Stamp of Dignity on his Mind, adorned with Greatness, enriched with Knowledge, and embelished with Genius."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1742

"A night that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, / And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, / Long-rifled Life of sweet can yield no more, / But from our comment on the comedy, / Pleasing reflections on parts well-sustain'd, / Or purposed emendations where we fail'd, / Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, / When, on their exit, sou...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)