Date: 1748

"I now began to look upon myself as a gentleman in reality; learned to dance of a Frenchman whom I had cured of a fashionable distemper; frequented plays during the holidays; became the oracle of an ale-house, where every dispute was referred to my decision; and at length contracted an acquaintan...

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1748

"I had made a conquest of her heart, and concluded myself the happiest man alive"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1747-8

"And is it not philosophy carried to the highest pitch, for a man to conquer such tumults of soul as I am sometimes agitated by, and, in the very height of the storm, to be able to quaver out an horse-laugh?"

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

Date: 1747-8

Lovelace has not made "assiduity and obsequiousness, and a conquest of his unruly passions, any part of his study"

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

Date: 1747-8

Lovelace has found, "[A] first passion thoroughly subdued, made the conqueror of it a rover; the conqueress a tyrant"

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

Date: 1747-8

"There is no triumph in force! No conquest over the will! --No prevailing, by gentle degrees, over the gentle passions!"

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

Date: 1747-8

Clarissa gives an instance "of a passion conquered, when there were so many inducements to give way to it"

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

Date: 1749

Nature "corresponding with her sweet assailant," may invade "in the heart of [a woman's] capital," and carry it by storm, while she lays "at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly, and completely"

— Cleland, John (bap. 1710, d. 1789)

Date: 1749

"Thus, not all the Charms of the incomparable Sophia; not all the dazzling Brightness, and languishing Softness of her Eyes; the Harmony of her Voice, and of her Person; not all her Wit, good Humour, Greatness of Mind, or Sweetness of Disposition, had been able so absolutely to conquer and enslav...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"I am not used, Madam, said Jones, to submit to such sudden Conquests; but as you have taken my Heart by Surprize, the rest of my Body hath a Right to follow"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)