Date: 1759

"With what a gust do we retire to our disinterested, and immortal friends in our closet, and find our minds, when applied to some favourite theme, as naturally, and as easily quieted, and refreshed, as a peevish child (and peevish children are we all till we fall asleep) when laid to the breast?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1759

Woes may haunt the mind (but the Gods may give "cruel Phantoms to the Wind"

— Grainger, James (1721-1766)

Date: 1759

"The idea of that dreary and endless melancholy, which the fancy naturally ascribes to their condition, arises altogether from our joining to the change which has been produced upon them, our own consciousness of that change, from our putting ourselves in their situation, and from our lodging, if...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"(If shapes like his be but the fancy's coinage)"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"Steel then, ye Powers of heav'n, / Steel my firm soul with your own fortitude, / Free from alloy of passion."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1759

A "steely Heart can brave the boist'rous Seas"

— Grainger, James (1721-1766)

Date: 1759

"For well I know, nor Flint, nor ruthless Steel, / Can arm the Breast of such a gentle Maid."

— Grainger, James (1721-1766)

Date: 1759

"He might view his own temper and character with that sort of satisfaction with which we consider a well-contrived machine, in the one case; or with that sort of distaste and dissatisfaction with which we regard a very awkward and clumsy contrivance, in the other."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"This happy composure, this perfect and complete harmony of soul, constituted that virtue which in their language is expressed by a word which we commonly translate temperance, but which might more properly be translated good temper, or sobriety and moderation of mind."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1759

"The spectator, therefore, must find it much more difficult to sympathize entirely, and keep perfect time, with his sorrow, than thoroughly to enter into his joy, and must depart much further from his own natural and ordinary temper of mind in the one case than in the other."

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)