Date: April 30, 1730

"The spirit of the brain, distilled by the heat of the imagination, like some chemical preparations, when exposed to the air, is apt to smoke, to take fire, to crack, and bounce, to the no small disturbance of the neighbourhood."

— Richard Russel and John Martyn

Date: 1735-6

"He, too, the fire of fancy feeds intense, / With all the train of passions thence derived: / Not kindling quick, a noisy transient blaze, / But gradual, silent, lasting, and profound."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"Whence Talbot's friendship glows to future times, / Intrepid, warm; of kindred tempers born; / Nursed, by experience, into slow esteem, / Calm confidence unbounded, love not blind, / And the sweet light from mingled minds disclosed, / From mingled chymic oils as bursts the fire."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: October, 1739

"Teach me to cool my passion's fires, / Make me the judge of my desires / The master of my heart."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1742

"Thoughts disentangle, passing o'er the lip; / Clean runs the thread; if not, 'tis thrown away / Or kept to tie up nonsense for a song; / Song, fashionably fruitless; such as stains / The fancy, and unhallow'd passion fires; / Chiming her saints to Cytherea's fane."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"AN Inward Baptism of Fire / Wherewith to be baptiz'd I have; / 'Tis all my longing Soul's Desire, / This, only This my soul can save."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1745

"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1745

"Forgive my Heat. / My rankled Mind, by Injuries inflam'd, / May be too prompt to take and give Offence."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1751, 1777

"It is sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without the greatest absurdity, cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along wi...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1753

"Passion! the great man's guide, the poor man's blame; / The soldier's lawrel, and the sigher's flame"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)