Date: 1749

People may "Bridle their passions and direct their will"

— Stepney, George (1663-1707)

Date: 1749

"These were Esteem and Pity; for sure the most outragiously rigid among her Sex will excuse her pitying a Man, whom she saw miserable on her own Account; nor can they blame her for esteeming one who visibly from the most honourable Motives, endeavoured to smother a Flame in his own Bosom, which, ...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"O what can words, / The weak interpreters of mortal thoughts, / Or what can thoughts (tho' wild of wing they rove / Thro' the vast concave of th'aetherial round) / If to the Heav'n of Heavens they'd win their way / Advent'rous, like the birds of night they're lost, / And delug'd in the flood of ...

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: Saturday, April 14, 1750

"No man has ever been drawn to crimes by love or jealousy, envy or hatred, but he can tell how easily he might at first have repelled the temptation, how readily his mind would have obeyed a call to any other object, and how weak his passion has been after some casual avocation, till he has recal...

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: June 1751, 1752

"Thou [Eagle] servant of almighty JOVE, / Who, free and swift as thought, could'st rove / To the bleak north's extremest goal."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: June 1751, 1752

"Thou [Eagle] type of wit and sense confin'd, / Cramp'd by the oppressors of the mind, / Who study downward on the ground."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1751

"Tears gushing again, my heart fluttering as a bird against its wires; drying my eyes again and again to no purpose."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1751

"Thus a lively Imagination and unperceived Self-Love, fetter the Heart in certain ideal Bonds of their own creating: Till at length some turbulent and furious Passion arising in its Strength, breaks these fantastic Shackles which Fancy had imposed, and leaps to its Prey like a Tyger chained by Co...

— Brown, John (1715-1766)

Date: January 3, 1750-51, 1807

"Rein in, on these important subjects, your imagination."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)