Date: 1760-7

"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1749

The internal "Somewhat" may be considered "as sitting on its Throne in the Mind, like the Lord High Chancellor of this Kingdom in his Court; where it presides, governs, directs, judges, acquits and condemns according to Merit and Justice; with a Knowledge which nothing escapes, a Penetration whic...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

The "internal Somewhat" may be considered "as sitting on its Throne in the Mind, like the Lord High Chancellor of this Kingdom in his Court; where it presides, governs, directs, judges, acquits and condemns according to Merit and Justice; with a Knowledge which nothing escapes, a Penetration whic...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1754, 1762

"The two ruling passions of this parliament, were zeal for liberty, and an aversion to the church; and to both of these, nothing could appear more exceptionable, than the court of high commission, whose institution rendered it entirely arbitrary, and assigned to it the defence of the ecclesiastic...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1751, 1791

"To Fancy's court we strait apply, / And wait the sentence of her eye."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1759

"They are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance seems to have misled several very eminent authors, to draw up their systems in such a manner, as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: w. August, 1745; 1822

"Above the thirst of gold, if in his heart / Ambition govern'd, Av'rice had no part."

— Williams, Sir Charles Hanbury (1708-1759)

Date: 1762-3

The five senses may "Allow [Reason] to retain the name / Of Royalty, and, as in sport, / To hold a mimic formal court, / Permitted (no uncommon thing) / To be a kind of puppet-king, / And suffer'd, by the way of toy, / To hold a globe, but not employ"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1767, 1778

"Envy in courts and cottages will dwell, / Nay climb to heaven itself, tho' born in hell: / In every living bosom lurks this pest, / But reigns unrival'd in the human breast; / On reason's throne usurps a thorny part, / And plants a thousand daggers in the heart."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)