Date: December 10, 1774; 1775
"Like a sovereign judge and arbiter of Art, he is possessed of that-presiding power which separates and attracts every excellence from every school; selects both from what is great, and what is little; brings home knowledge from the East and from the West; making the universe tributary towards fu...
preview | full record— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Date: 1774
"A parcel of warm hearts and inexperienced heads, heated by convivial mirth, and possibly a little too much wine, vow, and really mean at the time, eternal friendships to each other, and indiscreetly pour out their whole souls in common, and without the least reserve."
preview | full record— Stanhope, Philip Dormer, fourth earl of Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Date: 1775
Love and fear may dry up "soft springs of pity" in the heart and freeze them
preview | full record— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Date: 1775
"My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; / And in my breast the imperfect joys expire."
preview | full record— Gray, Thomas (1716-1771)
Date: 1775
"But, O, my brother! if thou hast a heart / That is not steel'd with stoic apathy / Against the magic of all-conqu'ring love, / Beware of beauty's pow'r; for she has charms / Wou'd melt the frozen breast of hoary age, / Or draw the lonely hermit from his cell / To gaze upon her."
preview | full record— Francklin, Thomas (1721-1784)
Date: 1776-1789
"The influence of a polite age and the labour of an attentive education had never been able to infuse into his rude and brutish mind the least tincture of learning"
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1777
"For I never will believe that envy, though passed through all the moral strainers, can be refined into a virtuous emulation, or lying improved into an agreeable turn for innocent invention."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1777
"Her mind, not less pure and unsullied, was obvious and transparent as the dear rivulet in the sequestered vale."
preview | full record— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)
Date: 1778, 1779
"Some of the songs seemed to melt my very soul."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)