Date: February 22, 1723

"Heav'ns! at the sight of that celestial face, / Each savage passion from the soul retires; / As wolves forsake the fold, when first the sun / Flames o'er the eastern hills."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: February 22, 1723

"Vouchsafe thy wretched lord a last embrace; / Whose soul is ready wing'd to wait on thine."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: 1724

"My lord, this seems th' extravagance of passion! / When anger rushes, unrestrain'd, to action, / Like a hot steed, it stumbles in its way!"

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1724

"Tho' the soft dove brood, gall-less, o'er your breast, / Yet let the wary serpent arm your mind."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1724

"When all at once / A thousand anxious Thoughts that slept by Day, / Swarm'd in my Brain, 'till it resembled Hell, / Hot, dark and hot: my sick Imagination, / Assisted by the Shades of Night, would give / A gloomy turn to each Idea there."

— Jeffreys, George (1678-1755)

Date: 1724

"Those Reflections began to prey upon my Comforts, and lessen the Sweets of my other Enjoyments: They might be said to have gnaw'd a Hole in my Heart before; but now they made a Hole quite thro' it; now they eat into all my pleasant things; made bitter every Sweet, and mix'd my Sighs with every S...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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: 1727

"Some, with a dry and barren Brain, / Poor Rogues! like costive Lap-Dogs strain; / While others with a Flux of Wit, / The Reader and their Friends besh**t."

— Somervile, William (1675-1742)

Date: 1727

"Conscience draws the Picture of the Crime in Apparition just before him, and the Reflection, not the injur'd Soul, is the Spectre that haunts him: Nor can he need a worse Tormenter in this Life; whether there is a worse hereafter, or no, I do not pretend to determine. This is certainly 'a Worm t...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"These abandon'd him to the Fury of an enrag'd Conscience, open'd the Sluices of the Soul, as I call them, and pour'd in a Flood of unsufferable Grief, letting loose those wild Beasts call'd Passions upon him, such as Rage, Anguish, Self-reproach, too late Repentance, and final Desperation, all t...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)