Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Not so the moral species, nor the powers / Of genius and design; the ambitious mind / There sees herself: by these congenial forms / Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act / She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd / Her features in the mirror."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Thus he learns / Their birth and fortunes; how allied they haunt / The avenues of sense; what laws direct / Their union; and what various discords rise, / Or fix'd or casual: which when his clear thought / Retains and when his faithful words express, / That living image of the external scene, / ...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1745

"A race fantastick, in whose page you see / Untutor'd fancy, a meer Jeu d'Esprit: / Wit's shatter'd mirror lies in fragments bright, / Reflects not nature, but confounds the sight."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1746, 1793

Happiness may "Dart thro' my soul one chearful ray"

— Blacklock, Thomas (1721-1791)

Date: 1746

"As the great light that rules the radiant sphere, / The passions of a generous mind extend"

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1746

The "heart of man" may be probed with the Muse's microscope

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1746

The "light of reason's ray" may be extinguished

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1746

Words may make the soul glow with rapture

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1733, 1748

"Where thou [Memory] art not, the cheerless human mind / Is one vast void, all darksome, sad, and blind; / No trace of anything remains behind."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: w. 1740, 1748

"Thirsting for Knowledge, but to know the right, / Thro' judgment's optick guide th' illusive sight, / To let in rays on Reason's darkling cell, / And Prejudice's lagging mists dispel."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)