Date: 1742

"Souls [are] elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire / To reach the distant skies, and triumph there / On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed; / Though we from earth, ethereal they that fell."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744

"The aspiring Soul, / Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends; / Zeal and Humility her wings to heaven."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"That name indeed / Becomes the rosy breath of love; becomes / The radiant smiles of joy, the applauding hand / Of admiration: but the bitter shower / That sorrow sheds upon a brother's grave, / But the dumb palsy of nocturnal fear, / Or those consuming fires that gnaw the heart / Of panting indi...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1749

"These were Esteem and Pity; for sure the most outragiously rigid among her Sex will excuse her pitying a Man, whom she saw miserable on her own Account; nor can they blame her for esteeming one who visibly from the most honourable Motives, endeavoured to smother a Flame in his own Bosom, which, ...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: April 1750, 1791

"Tho' gratitude were bless'd with all the pow'rs / Her bursting heart cou'd long for, tho' the swift, / The firey-wing'd imagination soar'd / Beyond ambition's wish--yet all were vain / To speak him as he is, who is INEFFABLE."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1751, 1777

"It is sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without the greatest absurdity, cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along wi...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1754

"But this consuming flame arises first in its own breast; and, let him roam where he will, such a man, like the poor wounded stag, still carries the arrow sticking in his heart"

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1754

"But this consuming flame arises first in its own breast; and, let him roam where he will, such a man, like the poor wounded stag, still carries the arrow sticking in his heart; or rather like a mad dog, enraged with his own misery, endeavours to bite and poison, with his own venomous foam, every...

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)

Date: 1755

"THE SHOCK OF RECEIVING MY OWN LETTER did not excite a sudden Gust of unwarrantable Passion, but prey'd upon my Heart with the slow and eating Fire of Distraction and Despair, 'till it ended in a Fever, which now remains upon my Spirits; and which, I fear, I shall find a difficult Task to overcome."

— Charke [née Cibber; other married name Sacheverell], Charlotte [alias Mr Brown] (1713-1760)