Date: 1737

""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737

"You see 'tis with weak heads as with weak stomachs, they immediately throw out what they received last; and what they read floats upon the surface of their mind, like oil upon water, without incorporating."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"But my Weakness of Body made me move so slowly, that it gave Time for a little Reflection, a Ray of Grace, to dart in upon my benighted Mind; and so, when I came to the Pond-side, I sat myself down on the sloping Bank, and began to ponder my wretched Condition: And thus I reason'd with myself."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"He whose Thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and cannot be fixed attentively to a few Ideas successively, will never be able to survey many and various objects distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelm'd and confounded with the Multiplicity of them."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"An active Fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying Images; it runs thro' a Number of new Scenes or new Pages with pleasure, but without due Attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a de...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"There are are some Persons who complain they cannot remember divine or human Discourses which they hear, when in Truth their Thoughts are wandering half the Time, or they hear with such coldness and Indifferency and a trifling Temper of Spirit, that it is no wonder the Things which are read or s...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1742

"Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, / And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: / Auspicious era! golden days, begin!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"At home a stranger, / Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, / And wondering at her own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)