Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)

"When the senses are gently and naturally shut up, and the command over the body intermitted, as in sleep, if we think at all we are said to dream; and generally wander through airy tracks of thought, which have no agreement with each other, nor are at all corrected by the judgment."

— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)

Date: 1763 (repr. 1776); 1794 (repr. 1799)

"When a train of ideas is very familiar to the mind, they often follow one another in the memory without any laborious recollection, and so as to arise almost instantaneously and mechanically; as in writing, singing, &c. the traces between them being worn like beaten roads."

— Doddridge, Philip (1702-1751)

Date: 1766

"When interest is predominant, it is sure to choak up all the avenues to the heart, which, would, otherwise be open to the cries of distress."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1771

"Lastly the road, which leads to Memory through a series of Ideas, however connected whether rationally or casually, this is RECOLLECTION."

— Harris, James (1709-1780)

Date: 1776

"Yet in such pursuits great moderation is requisite, lest the mind too freely rove, and idly indulge itself in the airy wilds of fancy, to the neglect of real science and useful improvement."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1776

"In short, he ranges, with curious attention, through the wide regions of truth; noting the different steps, that lead to it, by converging lines, and carefully distinguishing the false lights of fancy or passion from the cooler investigations of the reasoning faculties."

— Berington, Joseph (1743-1827)

Date: 1779, 1781

"He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"In his 'Night Thoughts' he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1786

"From that awful period, almost every expectation is forlorn: the heart is left unguarded: its great protector is no more: the vices therefore, which so long encompassed it in vain, obtain an easy victory: in crouds they pour into the defenceless avenues, and take possession of the soul: there is...

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)

Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827

"When I came home; on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world. I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now percieved by the minds of men, & read by them on earth"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)