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)

Date: 1730

"Ye Spirits, who reign, / In Cells of the Brain,/ Assume your Chimerical Shapes;/ Make English Hearts glad, / To see Devils run mad!"

— Odingsells, Gabriel (1690-1734)

Date: 1730

"Take heed then, heedless Swains, how you come nigh her, / For if she pop her Head but out of Windows, / Your Hearts, as sure as Fate, are burnt to Cinders."

— Mottley, John (1692-1750)

Date: 1730

"And know, that I am capable of resenting such ill Treatment, tho' you charge me with a Meanness that my Soul's a Stranger to; but I despise the Accuser and the Accusation both alike."

— Mottley, John (1692-1750)

Date: 1730

"Beauteous Creature! while I behold you, Thoughts crowd on Thoughts, and even obstruct the little Eloquence that I am Master of"

— Cibber, Theophilus (1703-1758)

Date: 1730

"Enlarge the Purlieu of my narrow Mind: / In Colours, plain, expose to Reason's Eye, / What, yet, to Reason Nature does deny"

— Smedley, Jonathan (1671-1729)

Date: 1730

"[Y]our Heart is like a Coffee-House, where the Beaus frisk in and out, one after another; and you are as little the worse for them, as the other is the better"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1730

"I obliterated all former Notions received from Education, Discourse, or Reading, in Relation to Actions or Characters of any Persons or Parties; and turned my Mind into a Rasa Tabula, that the Impressions I should receive from this more accurate Examination I was going to begin, might n...

— Baker, Richard, Sir (c. 1568-1645)

Date: 1730

"Now, if such a complex being were in nature, how would that spiritual Soul act in that Body, that in its first Union with it (excepting some universal Principles) is a rasa Tabula, as a white Paper, without the Notices of Things written in it?"

— Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe (1651-1715); Anonymous

Date: 1730, 1731

"But now, my Muse, the arduous Task engage, / And show the Charming Figure on the Stage, / Describe her Look, her Action, Voice and Mein, / The gay Coquette, soft Maid, or haughty Queen, / So bright she [Mrs. Oldfield] shone in every different Part, / She gain'd despotick Empire o'er the Heart, /...

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)