Date: 1726

"If this be the Case, it dictates the Necessity of early Education of Children, in whom, not the Soul only but the organick Powers are, as a Lump of soft Wax, which is always ready to receive any Impression; but if harden'd, grow callous, and stubborn, and like what we call Sealing-Wax, obstinate...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1726

"[H]e promis'd me a thousand Fineries, gave me an handful of Gold, told me I should have a fine House of my own, a Coach and Servants, with all manner of Imbellishments to grace and adorn my Beauty; which Beauty (continu'd he) has chain'd my Heart, ever since the moment I beheld it in the Milline...

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: 1726

"My breast, O WALPOLE, glows with grateful fire / The streams of Royal bounty, turn'd by Thee, / Refresh the dry domains of poesy."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1726

"Ha, ha, ha, he is shaken, my dear Ringwood; this Man of Depth and Inquiry; he is shaken; his Reason, like an ill-managed Horse, starts under him: What is this haughty Guide of imperious Man, this sufficient Word, Wisdom."

— Johnson, Charles (1679?-1748)

Date: 1726

"The Year, yet pleasing, but declining fast, / Soft, o'er the secret Soul, in gentle Gales, / A Philosophic Melancholly breathes, / And bears the swelling Thought aloft to Heaven."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"NOW, giddy Youth, whom headlong Passions fire, / Rouse the wild Game, and stain the guiltless Grove, / With Violence, and Death; yet call it Sport."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Whitening, the angry Billows rowl immense, / And roar their Terrors, thro' the shuddering Soul / Of feeble Man, amidst their Fury caught, / And, dash'd upon his Fate."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"O! teach me what is Good! teach me thy self! / Save me from Folly, Vanity and Vice, / From every low Pursuit! and feed my Soul, / With Knowledge, conscious Peace, and Vertue pure, / Sacred, substantial, never-fading Bliss!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Society divine! Immortal Minds! / Still visit thus my Nights, for you reserv'd, / And mount my soaring Soul to Deeds like yours."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1726

"Now, th'Eternal Scheme, / That Dark Perplexity, that Mystic Maze, / Which Sight cou'd never trace, nor Heart conceive, / To Reason's Eye, refin'd, clears up apace."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)