Date: 1775

An "unquenchable" spark may glow within the breast and blaze into freedom

— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)

Date: 1775

"BLEST Bard! to whom the Muses, grateful, gave / That pipe which erft their deareft Spenser won, / As once they found thee, pensive and alone, / Strewing sweet flow'rs upon his hallow'd grave; / Then bad thy fancy glow with sacred fire, / And softest airs thy rural verse inspire."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1776-1789

"The minds of men were gradually reduced to the same level, the fire of genius was extinguished, and even the military spirit evaporated."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776-1789

"The casual disputes that so frequently happened in their tumultuous parties of hunting or drinking were sufficient to inflame the minds of whole nations"

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1776

"Would it were passed, and that like Aetna, though my bosom flamed, my head was crowned with snow."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"But who that has the least spark of imagination, sees not how languid the latter expression is, when compared with the former."

— Campbell, George (1719-1796)

Date: December 10, 1776; 1777

"But I am persuaded, that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, and continued practising his profession to the very last, whose later works are not as replete with the fire of imagination, as those which were produced in...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1777

"Her mind's a burning fire, / Where sudden thoughts, like wreaths of smoak arise, / And, parting from the flame, disperse in air."

— Home, John (1722-1808)

Date: 1777

"How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1777

"If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benig...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)