Date: Friday, May 13, 1717

"Nature which was at first, excepting the original Taint, fair, and sincere, or as Mr. Lock says, 'a blank Sheet of Paper' capable of receiving any Characters at the Pleasure of the Writer, soon is either blurred over with Impertinence, fouled with Impurity, or improved and dignified with Impress...

— Theobald, Lewis (1688-1744)

Date: 1717

"Thou hast resolv'd his Fate, I read thy Soul, / This ten long Months I've study'd thy dark Breast / And know the Want of Vertue in thy Frame, / Which must subject thee to the Mind, that knows thee."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"I Love this worthy Gentleman, so worthy, / That Hand and Heart that I have seal'd his for ever."

— Settle, Elkanah (1648-1724); Theobald, Lewis (1688-1744)

Date: 1719

"I found it was not so easy to imprint right Notions in his Mind about the Devil, as it was about the Being of a God."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"Than from this Mind, O! venerable Shade, / Th'Impression be eras'd thy Words have made."

— Breval, John Durant (1680/81-1738)

Date: 1719-25

"A child, which is incapable of resisting grace, and is as it were a rasa tabula before God, affords a lively representation of that which grace is able to effect even in the heart of an old sinner."

— Quesnel, Pasquier (1634-1719); Russel, Richard (1685-1756)

Date: 1720

"[L]et me imprint upon thy Mind, these my last Words that perhaps thou may'st ever hear from thy affectionate Father: "

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1720

"But Adam's Soul being put in his Body, his Brain was a Tabula rasa, as White Paper, had no Impressions in it, but such as either God put in it, or such as came to him by his Senses."

— Burnet, Gilbert (1643-1715)

Date: 1720

"For as in the Body Politick, the Prince, (whom Seneca calls the Soul of the Commonwealth.) receiveth no Passages of State, or false Ones, where there is Negligence, or Disability in those subjectate Inquirers, (whom Xenophon terms the Eyes and Ears of Kings.) In like Manner the Soul of Man being...

— Hales, John (1584-1656)