Date: 1753

"[B]ut, notwithstanding the fatigue he had undergone, sleep refused to visit his eye-lids, all his faculties being kept in motion by the ideas that crowded so fast upon his imagination"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1753, 1770

"Tho' liv'd he now he might appeal with scorn / To Lords, Knights, 'Squires and Doctors, yet unborn; / Or justly mad to Moloch's burning fane / Devote the choicest children of his brain."

— Armstrong, John (1708/9-1779)

Date: 1753

"A thousand Fiends were in that Bosom, and all let loose to tempt me--I had resisted else."

— Moore, Edward (1712-1757)

Date: 1754

Authors may "awaken the judgment to exert itself, so as to reject all the alluring bribes which the passions, assisted by the imagination, can offer"

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

Date: 1754

"In a bosom inhabited by the dextra some comfort arises, even from despair of any pleasure which was once a favourite pursuit: for the very impossibility of obtaining our wish, makes us in earnest endeavour to conquer such a fruitless inclination: whereas on the contrary, in the bosom inhabited b...

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

Date: 1754

"It was my father's desire and my mother's practice to prevent the entrance of error, and then they made no doubt but truth would find room to inhabit my well-taught mind"

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

Date: 1754

"I at that moment felt strangers in my breast, distracting and tearing me asunder"

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

Date: 1754

"And now with triumphant voices the Cry broke forth into a loud huzza; declaring, that they were not ignorant who these strangers were, that had enter'd Portia's breast."

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

Date: 1754

"Then thus Philantha, in whose breast / Good-nature is a constant guest,"

— Bowden, Samuel (fl. 1733-1761)

Date: 1754

"If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off ...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)