Date: 1751, 1791

"Passions that flatter, or that slay, / Are beasts that fawn, or birds that prey."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"When Fancy's airy horse I strode, / And join'd the army on the road."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1754

"This little Bird, when you receive, / An emblem of my heart believe."

— Bowden, Samuel (fl. 1733-1761)

Date: 1754

"If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off ...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1755

"Or, the Power and Sway which the Soul exercises over them! Ten thousand Reins put into her Hands; yet she manages all, conducts all, without the least Perplexity or the least Irregularity: rather, with a Promptitude, a Consistency, and a Speed, that nothing else can equal!"

— Hervey, James (1714-1758)

Date: 1755

"To Modesty she made severe Pretence; / Under that Mask her Wantonness would hide; / Too thin Disguise! for oft the grosser Sense / Would reassume the Reins, drive over the weaker Fence."

— Arnold, Cornelius (b. 1714, d. in or after 1758)

Date: June, 1756

"I sent back memory, in heedful guise, / To search the records of preceding years; / Home, like the raven to the ark, she flies, / Croaking bad tidings to my trembling ears."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1759

A Logician is "one, that has been broke / To Ride and Pace his Reason by the Booke, And by their Rules, and Precepts, and Examples, / To put his wits into a kind of Trammells."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"That a Man may be scarce less ignorant of his own powers, than an Oyster of its pearl, or a Rock of its diamond; that he may possess dormant, unsuspected abilities, till awakened by loud calls, or stung up by striking emergencies, is evident from the sudden eruption of some men, out of perfec...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)