Date: 1751

"Oh had I known it sooner, engaged as I then was to one, who well deserved my love, could I have guessed miss Betsy Thoughtless was the contriver of that tender fraud, I know not what revolution might have happened in my heart! the empire you had there, was never totally extirpated, and kindness ...

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1752

"Ambition scarce ever produces any Evil, but when it reigns in cruel and savage Bosoms; and Avarice seldom flourishes at all but in the basest and poorest Soil."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1753

"He combats Passion, rooted in the Soul, / Whose Powers at once delight ye and controul; / Whose Magic Bondage each lost Slave enjoys, / Nor wishes Freedom, tho' the Spell destroys."

— Moore, Edward (1712-1757)

Date: 1759

"Refine you Spirit, with assiduous Care, / From ev'ry vicious Weed, your Virtue clear; / Virtue, and Vice, grow in the human Mind, / Like Corn, and Weeds, together closely join'd; / Extirpate Self-conceit, the worst of Weeds, / That checks the Growth of intellectual Seeds; / Each rebel Passion, ...

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

Date: 1765

"Thro' rooted vice my spirits fail, / Which o'er my heart an empire wins, / O let thy mercy countervail / To cover all our sins."

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1787

"The young man comparing the conduct, speeches, and pursuits of his father with those of other men, the one watering the rational part of his soul, and the others the concupiscible and irascible, he delivers up the government within himself to a middle power, that which is irascible and fond of c...

— Adams, John (1735-1826)