Date: 1752, 1791

"Thy appetites in easy tides / (As reason's luminary guides) / Soft flow--no wind can work them to a storm, / Correctly quick, dispassionately warm."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1752

"Weak, impotent, yet wishing to be free, / You are by much a greater Slave, than me; / A Slave, to ev'ry Gust that shakes your Mind, / Your Eyes broad open, and your Senses blind."

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: Tuesday, August 14, 1753

"But from the opposite errour, from torpid despondency, can come no advantage; it is the frost of the soul, which binds up all its powers, and congeals life in perpetual sterility."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1755

"Thy Words have shot like Lightning through my Frame; / And all my Soul's on Fire!"

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1755

"Hence--to thy Chamber, till returning Reason / Hath calm'd this Tempest."

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: 1759

"Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the planets till he should forget his task of ruling them, and reason should recover its original influence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1762

"One only hope remains, that you, my first and dearest friend, will not abandon me; that whatever cloud of melancholy may hang over my mind, yet you will still bear with me, and remove your abode to a place where I may have the consolation of your company."

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1762, 1781

"SUFFOLK's Daughter sinks not with her Woe: / Beneath it's Weight I feel myself resign'd; / Tho' strong the Tempest, stronger still my Mind."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1763

"The once smiling scene has a melancholy gloom, which strikes a damp through my inmost soul."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1764

Reason may be clouded

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)