Date: 1687, 1691

"Every Prince puts a value upon his Reasons, as he does upon his Moneys."

— Marana, Giovanni Paolo (1642-1693); Anonymous [William Bradshaw (fl. 1700) or Robert Midgley (1655?-1723)?]

Date: 1691

"Within the inner Closet of my Brain / Attend the nobler Members of my Train; / Invention, Master of my Mint, grows there, / And Memory, my faithful Treasurer."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

"Hunger will caper over stone Walls, I might add, over Hills set upon Hills, and therefore did I chuse in Affliction rather to make my Brains my Exchequer, than (like a Modest Gentleman) to groan under the Slavery of a Blushing Temper."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1693

"Yet that lovely Body is but the Shell of a more glorious Inhabitant, and is as far out-shone by that more radiant Gust, which lies within, as your choicest Jewels exceed the lustre of the Cask; which holds them: For her Illustrious mind has got as inexhaustible a store of rare perfections in it,...

— Anonymous

Date: 1751

"The captain had a fund of great goodnature in his heart, but was somewhat too much addicted to passion, and frequently apt to resent without a cause, but when once convinced he had been in the wrong, no one could be more ready to acknowlege and ask pardon for his mistake."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1752

"'But you understand Human Nature to the Bottom,' answered Amelia;' and your Mind is a Treasury of all ancient and modern Learning.'"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"Tho' this letter was somewhat shorter than those she usually wrote to him, yet the few lines it contain'd discovered, without her designing to do so, such a well establish'd fund of tenderness in her soul, as cannot but be discernable to every understanding reader."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1753

"This new domestic, whose name was Maurice, underwent, with great applause, the examination of our hero, who perceived in him, a fund of sagacity and presence of mind, by which he was excellently qualified for being the valet of an adventurer; he was therefore accommodated with a second hand suit...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1754

"For these I'll melt my brain into invention, / Coin new conceits, and hang my richest words / As polish'd jewels in their bounteous ears."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1760-7

"Honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal; but Gold and Silver will pass all the world over without any other recommendation than their own weight."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)