Date: 1785

"He vociferated, and made an impression. There, again, was a mind like a hammer."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"He was too proud to submit, even for a moment, to be the object of ridicule, and instantly retaliated with such keen sarcastick wit, and such a variety of degrading images, of every one of which I was the object, that, though I can bear such attacks as well as most men, I yet found myself so muc...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The very Highland names, or the sound of a bagpipe, will stir my blood, and fill me with a mixture of melancholy and respect for courage; with pity for an unfortunate and superstitious regard for antiquity, and thoughtless inclination for war; in short, with a crowd of sensations with which sobe...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"I have often experienced, that scenes through which a man has passed, improve by lying in the memory: they grow mellow."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"The mind of man can bear a certain pressure; but there is a point when it can bear no more."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792

"Thus a large dumpling to its cell confin'd / (A very apt allusion to my mind)."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1785

"To apply his great mind to minute particulars, is wrong: it is like taking an immense balance, such as is kept on quays for weighing cargoes of ships, to weigh a guinea. I knew I had neat little scales, which would do better; and that his attention to every thing which falls in his way, and his ...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"From shadows thinner than the fleeting night / That floats along the vale, or haply seems / To wrap the mountain in its hazy vest, / (Which the first sun-beam dissipates in air.) / How dost thou conjure monsters which ne'er mov'd / But in the chaos of thy frenzied brain!"

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1786, 1816

"In vain at glory gudgeon Boswell snaps-- / His mind's a paper kite--compos'd of scraps / Just o'er the tops of chimneys form'd to fly."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"One of these beneficent Genii, assuming, without delay, the exterior of a shepherd, more renowned for his piety than all the derviches and santons of the region, took his station near a flock of white sheep, on the slope of a hill; and began to pour forth, from his flute, such airs of pathetic m...

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)