Date: 1730

"It is hard for a reader, who has not rolled this thought in his own mind, to follow in such an abstracted speculation."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"With swift wing / O'er land and sea imagination roams; / Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, / Elates his being, and unfolds his powers; / Or in his breast heroic virtue burns."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"The generous Ashley thine, the friend of man; / Who scan'd his nature with a brother's eye, / His weakness prompt to shade, to raise his aim, / To touch the finer movements of the mind, / And with the moral beauty charm the heart."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1731

"A thousand Wonders, / A thousand Mysteries, at once reveal'd, / Come rushing on my Memory!"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1731

"Cou'd Reason's Force / Tear the unlicens'd Image from my Heart, / Or, patient, leave to Time, th'unhasten'd Means, / To bless my fierce Desires; Who knows what Chance, / Or Death, or Thought, or Woman's changeful Will, / Or my own conquer'd Wishes, may produce."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1732

"But the free-thinker, with a vigorous flight of thought, breaks through those airy springes, and asserts his original independency."

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

Date: 1732

"In a Word, he travers'd the Wilderness dejected with Love, Despair, Expectance, jealous Doubts, till wearied with the Journey of his Mind, more than the Travel of his Body; he rested him in the Alcove, if possible to compose his Humour, which began to be somewhat impatient at the Neglect he conc...

— Boyd, Elizabeth (fl. 1727-1745)

Date: 1732

"During this Time, the Prince, who had order'd the Guard to halt, and whom the Story of Duke Bellfond's Page had made attentive, strictly view'd Amanda, and fancy'd he could in that Lady trace all Florio's Features, whilst the distress'd Fair One, who imagin'd she was the Subject of Amelia's Disc...

— Boyd, Elizabeth (fl. 1727-1745)

Date: 1733

"May not the sentient Principle have its Seat in some Place in the Brain, where the Nerves terminate, like the Musician shut up in his Organ-Room? May not the infinite Windings, Convolutions, and Complications of the Beginning of the Nerves which constitute the Brain, serve to d...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: 1734, 1735

"The Mind, in peaceful Solitude, has Room / To range in Thought, and ramble far from home."

— Barber, Mary (c.1685-1755)