Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"And all this time improve myself too, not only in Science, but in Nature, by tracing in the little Babes what all Mankind are, and have been, from Infancy to riper Years"

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

Date: 1744

"[T]he charming image of a city's brightest ornament" may be engraven on the heart by "the god of love ... in characters too indelible ever to be erased"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1748

"[U]nless my image had been engraven on her heart, it would have been impossible to know me for the person who had worn her aunt's livery"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

"She slept longer than usual the next Morning, and it seemed as if some golden Dream was pictured in her Fancy"

— Coventry, (William) Francis Walter (1725-1753/4)

Date: 1752

"What a Happiness have you painted to my Imagination!"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1760-7

"To conceive this right,--call for pen and ink--here's paper ready to your hand. --Sit down, Sir, paint her to your own mind"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1761

"I admire and revere the purity of your sentiments, the innocence of your life; I trace out in my mind the method of your daily conduct, by comparing it with what I formerly well knew in happier days, and under more endearing circumstances."

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1763

"My tears streamed afresh when I beheld him, when I remembered the sweet hours we had passed together, the gay scenes which hope had painted to our hearts; I wept over the friend I had so loved, I pressed his cold hand to my lips."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1766

"My fancy draws that harmless groupe as listening to every line of this with great composure."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1768

"The mind sits terrified at the objects she has magnified herself and blackened; reduce them to their proper size and hue she overlooks them."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)