Date: 1766

"Their insensibility excited my highest compassion, and blotted my own uneasiness a while from my mind."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1766

"We should then find that creatures, whose souls are held as dross, only wanted the hand of a refiner; we should then find that wretches, now stuck up for long tortures, lest luxury should feel a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the state in times of danger."

— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)

Date: 1772, 1810

"He spoke: a sudden cloud his senses stole, / And thickening darkness swam o'er all his soul"

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

Date: 1772, 1810

"His vital spark her earthly cell forsook, / And into air her fleeting progress took."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

Date: 1772, 1810

"'I saw thee near the murmuring fountain lie; / 'Mark'd the rough storm that gather'd in thy breast, / 'And knew what care thy joyless soul opprest."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

Date: 1772, 1810

"'So vain his wishes, and so weak his mind, / 'His soul, a bright obscurity at best, / 'And rough with tempests his afflicted breast, / 'His life, a flower ere evening sure to fade, / 'His highest joys, the shadow of a shade."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

Date: 1764, 1773

"Such is my theme, which means to prove, / That tho' we drink, or game, or love, / As that or this is most in fashion, / Precedence is our ruling passion."

— Shenstone, William (1714-1763)

Date: 1774

"Her soul, refin'd from passion's base alloy, / Seem'd wrapt in visions of seraphic joy."

— Roberts, William Hayward (d. 1791)

Date: 1777

"My father was far from being so once; but misfortune has now given his mind a tincture of sadness."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"Though I meant a description, I have scrawled through most of my paper without beginning one. I have made but some slight sketches of his mind; of his person I have said nothing, which, from a woman to a woman, should have been mentioned the soonest."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)