Date: 1754
But when we enter into a serious and impartial detail concerning this knowledge, and analyse carefully what the great pretenders to it have given and give us daily for knowledge, we shall be obliged to confess, that the human intellect is rather a rank than a fertile soil, barren without due cult...
preview | full record— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
Date: 1758, 1781
"'Tis hence the sev'ral Passions take their Rise, / The Seeds of Virtue, and the Roots of Vice; / Hence Notes peculiar or to Young, or Old, / Phlegmatic, sanguine, amorous, or cold!"
preview | full record— Hawkins, William (1721-1801)
Date: 1771
"Roused from the sleep of death, a countless crowd / ("Whose hearts like trees before the wind are bow'd ... ) / Press to the hallow'd courts, with eager strife, / Catch the convincing word, and hear for life"
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1779, 1781
"A memory admitting some things and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness."
preview | full record— 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."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1779, 1781
"Pope foresaw the future efflorescence of imagery then budding in his mind, and resolved to spare no art or industry of cultivation."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1784, 1804
"When this is the case the hedge (to our feelings) is broken down, and we lie exposed to every temptation; as says the Psalmist--'Why hast thou broken down her hedges, so that all they that pass by the way do pluck her?' Psal. lxxx. 12"
preview | full record— Huntington, William (1745-1813)
Date: April 5, 1781, 1788
"Cultivated ground has few weeds; a mind occupied by lawful business, has little room for useless regret."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)