Date: 1727

"It is without Doubt, that Fancy and Imagination form a world of Apparitions in the Minds of Men and Women; (for we must not exclude the Ladies in this Part, whatever we do) and People go away as thoroughly possess'd with the Reality of having seen the Devil, as if they convers'd Face to Face wit...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1728

Say, "How Fancy every Shape puts on? / How kindling Sparks her Form compose, / And whence the constant-shining Train, / That Mem'ry, or Experience shows?"

— Pattison, William (1706-1727)

Date: April 30, 1730

"The spirit of the brain, distilled by the heat of the imagination, like some chemical preparations, when exposed to the air, is apt to smoke, to take fire, to crack, and bounce, to the no small disturbance of the neighbourhood."

— Richard Russel and John Martyn

Date: 1731

Say "How Fancy ev'ry Shape puts on, / How kindling Sparks her Form compose, / And whence that ever shining Train / That Memory or Experience shows."

— Travers, H. (f. 1730)

Date: 1732

"Distrest by a confused Medley of thinking, she threw herself carelesly on a Couch, where amid a Chaos of Reflection, she slept, if, we can properly be said to sleep, (when the Mind fir'd by warring Passions, dreams 'em o'er again) the Chamber Door had but negligently fell too, for the unthinking...

— Boyd, Elizabeth (fl. 1727-1745)

Date: 1735-6

"He, too, the fire of fancy feeds intense, / With all the train of passions thence derived: / Not kindling quick, a noisy transient blaze, / But gradual, silent, lasting, and profound."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"Whence Talbot's friendship glows to future times, / Intrepid, warm; of kindred tempers born; / Nursed, by experience, into slow esteem, / Calm confidence unbounded, love not blind, / And the sweet light from mingled minds disclosed, / From mingled chymic oils as bursts the fire."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: October, 1739

"Teach me to cool my passion's fires, / Make me the judge of my desires / The master of my heart."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1742

"Thoughts disentangle, passing o'er the lip; / Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away / Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song; / Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains / The fancy, and unhallow'd passion fires; / Chiming her saints to Cytherea's fane."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"AN Inward Baptism of Fire / Wherewith to be baptiz'd I have; / 'Tis all my longing Soul's Desire, / This, only This my soul can save."

— Wesley, John and Charles