Date: 1766

"When interest is predominant, it is sure to choak up all the avenues to the heart, which, would, otherwise be open to the cries of distress."

— Trusler, John (1735-1820)

Date: 1779, 1781

"He sent his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagination can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence, and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings, to trace the counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1781

"In his 'Night Thoughts' he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions, a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1784

"The truth is, a depth of cunning that enables them to over-reach, conceal, deceive, is the only province of the mind left for them, as slaves, to occupy."

— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)

Date: 1784

"The minds of these, our fellow-creatures, that are now drowned in ignorance, being thus opened and improved, the pale of reason would be enlarged; Christianity would receive new strength; liberty new subjects."

— Ramsay, James (1733-1789)

Date: 1786

"From that awful period, almost every expectation is forlorn: the heart is left unguarded: its great protector is no more: the vices therefore, which so long encompassed it in vain, obtain an easy victory: in crouds they pour into the defenceless avenues, and take possession of the soul: there is...

— Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846)