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: 1726

"How the weak Mind a naked Blank, receives, / The first Impression Time, or Custom gives."

— Johnson, Charles (1679?-1748)

Date: 1730

"The former of these, our Free-thinkers, out of their singular wisdom, and benevolence to makind, endeavour to erase from the minds of men."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1742 [see first edition, 1733]

"The Mind, like a Tabula rasa, easyly receives the first Impression; and, like that, when the first Impression is deeply made, it with Difficulty admits of an Erasement of the first Characters, which in some Minds are indelible"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: February 1738

One may be " In State most desponding, by the Light of a Taper, / With Thoughts dull and dark as my Wax, or my Paper"

— Tickell, Thomas (1685-1740)

Date: 1741, 1742, 1755

"For it was Aristotle's opinion, who compared the soul to a 'rasa tabula', that human sensations and reflections were passions: These therefore are what he finely calls, the 'passive intelligent'; which, he says, shall cease, or is corruptible."

— Warburton, William (1698-1779)

Date: 1748

"But should some swain more skillful than the rest, / his name on this cold marble breast, / Not rolling ages could deface that name."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1752, 1790

Apollo's "sacred fire" inspires the bard's breast, "Like the fair empty sheet he hangs to view, / Void, and unfurnish'd, till inspir'd by you."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1752, 1790

"O let one beam, one kind inlightning ray / At once upon his mind and paper play!"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)

Date: 1752, 1790

"The yielding paper's pure, but vacant breast, / By her fair hand and flowing pen imprest, / At ev'ry touch more animated grows."

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787)