Date: 1754

"At the early age of six years old I lost my father; yet his precepts were the principal foundation of all the instructions I afterwards received: for young as I was, he perceived (he said) the openings of a lively imagination; which, if directed into a right channel, would turn to my advantage, ...

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

Date: 1754

"My father kindly resolved that I should not have the Herculean labour of cleansing the Augean: stable, or what is much worse, a corrupted mind"

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

Date: 1754

"She had from her chamber-window been shot through the heart by the blind archer, who took his stand on the feather of a military man marching at the head of his company through the market-town in which she lived"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1754

"I should be ashamed of myself, if I would not acknowledge the merit of Ben Johnson as a writer; but a capacity for writing holds so very low a place in my esteem, when weigh'd in the balance with an honest heart, that with me (and I wish it was the same with every other human creature) it...

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

Date: 1755

"So that our author did not enter the lists against the memory of the real substantial chivalry, which he held in veneration; but, with design to expel an hideous phantome that possessed the brains of the people, waging perpetual war with true genius and invention."

— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

Date: 1755

"I revised my comedies, together with some interludes which had lain some time in a corner, and I did not think them so wretched, but that they might appeal from the muddy brain of this player, to the clearer perception of other actors less scrupulous and more judicious."

— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

Date: 1755

"In this manner did he invent names for a great many knights in either army, to all of whom also he gave arms, colours, mottos and devices, without the least hesitation, being incredibly inspired by the fumes of a distempered fancy"

— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

Date: 1756, 1766

"He would wink at the light he had, struggle to evade conviction, and make his mind a chaos and a hell"

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1756, 1766

"They will give us for it the despicable legends of fictitious saints and false miracles;--a history of diseases cured instantly by relicks;--accounts of speaking images;--stories of travelling chapels;--wonders done by a Madona;--and the devil knows what he has crowded into their wretched...

— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)

Date: 1759

"Even this Piece of Wisdom did not find its Way into his Mind by Reflexion (that Passage for its Entrance had long been too closely barricadoed), but came in at his Eyes, and engaged his constant Counsellors, his Inclinations, on the Side of a fair Object he had accidentally beheld, at the House ...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)