Date: 1736, 1737, 1759, 1744, 1771, 1773

"A female mind like a rude fallow lies; / No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise."

— Ingram, Anne [née Howard; other married name Douglas], Viscountess Irwin (c. 1696-1764)

Date: 1736, 1737, 1759, 1744, 1771, 1773

"As well might we expect, in winter, spring, / As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring; / As well might we expect Peruvian ore / We should possess, yet dig not for the store: / Culture improves all fruits, all sorts we find, / Wit, judgement, sense--fruits of the human mind."

— Ingram, Anne [née Howard; other married name Douglas], Viscountess Irwin (c. 1696-1764)

Date: 1737

"When the luxuriant Ardour of his Youth / Succeeding Years had tam'd to better Growth, / And seem'd to break the Body's Crust away, / To give th'expanded Mind more Room to play; / Which, in its Evening, open'd on the Sight / Surprizing Beams of full Meridian Light, / As thrifty of its Splendor it...

— Hughes, Jabez (1685-1731)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is not so much the being exempt from Faults, as the having overcome them, that is an Advantage to us; it being with the Follies of the Mind as with the Weeds of a Field, which, if destroyed and consumed upon the place of their Birth, enrich and improve it more than if none had ever sprung the...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"We should manage our Thoughts in composing a Poem, as Shepherds do their Flowers in making a Garland; first select the Choicest, and then dispose them in the most proper places, where they give a Lusture to each other: Like the Feathers in Indian Crowns, which are so managed that every one refle...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Minds are the Soil, and Precepts are the Seeds: / The richer That, the ranker are the Weeds, / If Weeds it bear: But well repay'd the Toil, / That sows pure Virtue on a fertile Soil."

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Like Twigs, entrusted to the Planter's Pains, / Who prunes, engrafts, indulges, or restrains, / Till in the Garden Ornament they yield, / And Fruit, which else had cumber'd up the Field: / Or that rich Ore we from the Indies bring, / Which bears, refin'd, the Image of the King; / But mix'd for-e...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1740

"Your Soul shall grow up as young Plants, and your Daughters be as the polished Corners of the Temple; and to sum up all Blessings in one,--Then shall the LORD be your GOD."

— Whitefield, George (1714-1770)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

A mother may "prepare the sweet Virgin Soil of [her childrens'] Minds to receive the Seeds of Virtue and Goodness so early, that as they grow up, one need only now a little Pruning, and now a little Watering, to make them the Ornaments and Delights of the Garden of this Life!

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

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Why, the Trees of Resolution, and the Shrubs of cautious Fear, whose intertwining Roots had contributed to support the frail Mound, being loosen'd from their Hold, they, and the Bank itself, will be seen floating on the Surface of the triumphant Waters."

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