Date: 1729

"Above, beneath, across, around, [fantastic lightnings] fly! / A dire deception strikes the mental eye!"

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1729

"Zephyrs, that oft, where lovers list'ning lie, / Along the grove, in melting music die, / And in lone caves to minds poetic roll / Seraphic whispers, that abstract the soul."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1729

"Still o'er my mind wild Fancy holds her sway, / Still on strange visionary land I stray."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead;] i. e. A trifling head, and a contracted heart,as the poet, book 4. describes the accomplished Sons of Dulness; of whom this is only an Image, or Scarecrow, and so stuffed out with these corresponding materials."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1728, 1729, 1736

"She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"Ten thousand thousand fleet ideas, such / As never mingled with the vulgar dream, / Crowd fast into the mind's creative eye."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730, 1744, 1746

"The awaken'd throb for virtue, and for fame; / The sympathies of love, and friendship dear; / With all the social offspring of the heart."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"No light the darkness of that mind invades, / Where Chaos rules, enshrin'd in genuine Shades;"

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1730

"No light the darkness of that mind invades, / Where Chaos rules, enshrin'd in genuine Shades; / Where, in the Dungeon of the Soul inclos'd,/ True Dulness nods, reclining and repos'd.

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1730

A "mimic gleam of transient light" may break through the gloom of dullness "and then they think they write"

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)