Date: 1719

"I now began to consider seriously my Condition, and the Circumstance I was reduc'd to, and I drew up the State of my Affairs in Writing, not so much to leave them to any that were to come after me, for I was like to have but few Heirs, as to deliver my Thoughts from daily poring upon them, and a...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1720

"His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest / Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast: / Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes, / A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams."

— Amhurst, Nicholas (1697-1742)

Date: 1723

"Tho' now, 'tis true, the strong Temptation's Force / Suspends Religion, and diverts its Course; / Yet still the Pow'r that chiefly rules your Soul, / And will I trust your future Life controul, / Is heav'nly Virtue, which, tho' now opprest / It sleeps a while unactive in your Breast, / Will, rou...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: February 22, 1723

"If a single thought / Were tinctur'd with disloyalty, this hand / Shou'd pierce my heart to drive the rebel out."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: 1724

"Nay by the Hate (since Love is now no more) / The fix'd Aversion that usurps your Bosom, / (The native Seat of Gentleness and Pity) / By That and by its Cause, my late Transgression, / So black, so heinous as to shame Remorse, / Indulge that Hate, and give Revenge a loose / In this one Thought,...

— Jeffreys, George (1678-1755)

Date: 1724

"It is for this Reason, that I have so largely set down the Particulars of the Caresses I was treated with by the Jeweller, and also by this Prince; not to make the Story an Incentive to the Vice, which I am now such a sorrowful Penitent for being guilty of, God forbid any shou'd make so vile a U...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1725

"The under Passions may, by their various Operations, cause some Diversity in the Colour and Complexion of the Whole, but 'tis the Master-Passion which must determine the Character."

— Gally, Henry (bap. 1696, d. 1769)

Date: September 10, 1726

"Now, according to my supposition, there being no active intelligent Being, who, by his Presence and Superintendency, governs and directs the Course of those vagabond Images, every thing in the Brain resembles the fortuitous concourse of Atoms."

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1729

"E'en not all these, in one rich lot combined, / Can make the happy man, without the mind; / Where judgment sits clear-sighted, and surveys / The chain of reason with unerring gaze; / Where fancy lives, and to the brightening eyes, / His fairer scenes, and bolder figures rise; / Where social lov...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)