Date: 1743

"A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, / Long-rifled Life of sweet can yield no more, / But from our comment on the comedy, / Pleasing reflections on parts well-sustain'd, / Or purposed emendations where we fail'd, / Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, / When, on their exit, sou...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Where virtue, rising from the awful depth / Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake / The unadorn'd condition of her birth; / And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues, / Assumes a various feature, to attract, / With charms responsive to each gazer's eye, / The hearts of men."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"What? like a storm from their capacious bed / The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might / Of these eruptions, working from the depth / Of man's strong apprehension, shakes his frame / Even to the base; from every naked sense / Of pain or pleasure dissipating all / Opinion's feeble coverings...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Moreover, from without / When oft the same society of forms / In the same order have approach'd his mind, / He deigns no more their steps with curious heed / To trace; no more their features or their garb / He now examines; but of them and their / Condition, as with some diviner's tongue, / Affi...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1747

"Since here defective, Heaven be so kind / With never-fading charms to dress my mind"

— Teft, Elizabeth (fl. 1741-7)

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

"Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame."

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

Date: August 12, 1738, to Nov. 1, 1739 [1748]

"Therefore the Eyes of my Understanding are not yet open'd, but the Old Veil is still upon my Heart."

— Wesley, John (1703-1791)

Date: Saturday, November 10, 1750

"It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour and fictitious benevolence."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: October 20, 1752

It is bad manners for Richardson's heroines to "declare all they think [since] fig leaves are necessary for our minds as our bodies."

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