Date: 1748

"But how will this dismantled soul appear, / When stripped of all it lately held so dear, / Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: 1747-8

"And he apprehends, that, in the study of Human Nature, the knowlege of those apprehensions leads us farther into the recesses of the Human Mind, than the colder and more general reflections suited to a continued and more contracted Narrative."

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

Date: 1747-8

"The Eye is the casement at which the heart generally looks out"

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

Date: 1747-8

"Lovelace, tell me, if thou canst, what sort of sign must thou hang out, wert thou obliged to give us a clear idea by it of the furniture of thy mind?"

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

Date: 1748

Thought is "The hermit's solace in his cell"

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1747-8

"[W]hen I heard her sentiments on two or three subjects, and took notice of that searching eye, darting into the very inmost cells of our frothy brains, by my faith, it made me look about me."

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

Date: w. 1740, 1748

"Thirsting for Knowledge, but to know the right, / Thro' judgment's optick guide th' illusive sight, / To let in rays on Reason's darkling cell, / And Prejudice's lagging mists dispel."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)

Date: w. 1736, 1749

"Why should I drag along this life I hate, / Without one thought to mitigate the weight? / Whence this mysterious bearing to exist, / When every joy is lost, and every hope dismissed? / In chains and darkness wherefore should I stay, / And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?"

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

Date: 1749

"Open a window in our breast, / That each our heart may see"

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1749

"[I]t would be an ill Office in us to pay a Visit to the inmost Recesses of his Mind, as some scandalous People search into the most secret Affairs of their Friends, and often pry into their Closets and Cupboards only to discover their Poverty and Meanness to the World."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)