Date: 1691

"I say I've but one little tiney favour to beg, and then--and that is--that he'd maturely Weigh, Swallow, Chew the Cud, and soundly digest this following first Book, before he throw it out agen, for should he make too much hast, and too greedily read it over, as 'tis to be fear'd the pleasantness...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1696

"This shall be the Banquet of my Mind, all Times, besides those Devoted to my Sighs, and Sadness!"

— Pix, Mary (c.1666-1720)

Date: May 10, 1704

"He that can with Epicurus content his ideas with the films and images that fly off upon his senses from the superficies of things, such a man, truly wise, creams off Nature, leaving the sour and the dregs for philosophy and reason to lap up."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1705

"The Little Histories of this Kind have taken Place of Romances, whose Prodigious Number of Volumes were sufficient to tire and satiate such whose Heads were most fill'd with those Notions."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1705

"The Little Histories of this Kind have taken Place of Romances, whose Prodigious Number of Volumes were sufficient to tire and satiate such whose Heads were most fill'd with those Notions."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1723

"Thou'rt to my Mind so very good, / Its Consolation, Physick, Food."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1752

"Learning, he said, had the same Effect on the Mind, that strong Liquors have on the Constitution; both tending to eradicate all our natural Fire and Energy."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1768

"But there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning--where the sciences may be more fitly woo'd, or more surely won than here--where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high--where Nature (take her all together) has so little to answer for--and, to close all, where t...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1773

"So forcibly indeed was Sindall struck with it, that some little time past before he thought of lifting her from the ground; he looked indeed his very soul at every glance; but it was a soul unworthy of the object on which he gazed, brutal, unfeeling and inhuman; he considered her, at that moment...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1782

"Had they mingled in the world, fed high their fancy with hope, and looked forward with expectation of enjoyment; had they been courted by the great, and offered with profusion adulation for their abilities, yet, even when starving, been offered nothing else!"

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