Date: 1754

"I may with the same Naïvité remove the Veil from my mental as well as personal Imperfections; and expose them naked to the World."

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1759

"But why are Originals so few? not because the Writer's harvest is over, the great Reapers of Antiquity having left nothing to be gleaned after them; nor because the human mind's teeming time is past, or because it is incapable of putting forth unprecedented births."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1762, 1781

"Bear back, false Winchester, thy proffer'd Bliss, / Weigh Crowns and Kingdoms with a deed like this, / Far, far too light in Wisdom's eye they seem, / Nor shake the scale, while Reason holds the beam."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1763, 1770

"Yes, doubtless, steel'd--but still he show'd a heart, / As soft, as Cleopatra's softest part."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)

Date: 1770

"Excursive thought" may "Stand still a moment, and by reason taught / Judge rightly, with strict eye thyself survey"

— Downman, Hugh (1740-1809)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"My personal freedom had been somewhat impaired by the House of Commons and the Board of Trade; but I was now delivered from the chain of duty and dependence, from the hopes and fears of political adventure: my sober mind was no longer intoxicated by the fumes of party, and I rejoiced in my escap...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"By many, conversation is esteemed as a theatre or a school: but, after the morning has been occupied by the labours of the library, I wish to unbend rather than to exercise my mind; and in the interval between tea and supper I am far from disdaining the innocent amusement of a game at cards."

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)