Date: 1723, 1725

"AS Tapers languish at th' Approach of Day," and as the "Book of Fame" may be "Eraz'd and blotted," "So fully o'er the Soul may a lover's Influence reign, "That not one Rebel-Thought [its] Sway disdains"

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

Date: 1724

"If I have here touch'd a young Lady's Vanity and Levity, it was to show her how beautiful she is without those Blots, which certainly stain the Mind, and stamp Deformity where the greatest Beauties would shine, were they banish'd."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

Date: 1724, 1725

"[H]is Image was too deeply impress'd in her Mind, ever to banish it thence, tho' effac'd and blotted by the Memory of his Crimes"

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

Date: 1729

"Oh, let not the soft, penetrating plague / Creep on the freeborn mind! and working there, / With the sharp tooth of many a new-form'd want, / Endless, and idle all, eat out the heart / Of liberty; the high conception blast; / The noble sentiment, the impatient scorn / Of base subjection, and the...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: January 1739

"Her enemy, therefore, is obliged to take shelter under her protection, and by making use of rational arguments to prove the fallaciousness and imbecility of reason, produces, in a manner, a patent under her hand and seal."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741

"Early instruct your tender Youth / In Heav'n's unerring Law of Truth, / Engrave it on their Mind."

— Duck, Stephen (1705-1756)

Date: 1745

"They are plainly and explicitly published; easily understood; and in fair and legible characters writ in every man's heart; and the wisdom, reason, and necessity of them are readily discerned."

— Mason, John (1706-1763)

Date: 1748, 1777

"It may, therefore, be a subject worthy of curiosity, to enquire what is the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory."

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1748, 1754

The law "is within us, ever present with us, ever active and incumbent on the Mind, and engraven on the Heart in the fair and large Signatures of Conscience, Natural Affection, Compassion, Gratitude, and universal Benevolence."

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)

Date: 1748, 1754

"Nature has therefore endued us with a MIDDLE FACULTY, wonderfully adapted to our MIXED State, which holds partly of Sense and partly of Reason, being strongly allied to the former, and the common Receptacle in which all the Notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly su...

— Fordyce, David (bap. 1711, d. 1751)