The eighteenth century has long been referred as an “Age of Reason.” It is a tribute to the rationalist philosophy, scientific advancements and progress in material prosperity. The seeds of the modern, modernity and modernization were sown in the Age of Enlightenment which started in the seventeenth century in the West. The epistemological gists of the eighteenth century were reason, order, and rationalism. However, they were only some parts of the whole story, for industrial revolution, capitalism, urbanization, and democracy led to the dynamic and vibrant socio-cultural world. Thus the eighteenth century should be now called an “Age of Energy, Mobility and Exuberance.”The English Literature of the eighteenth century usually incorporated the socio-cultural values of Enlightenment and modernity. It was habituated to the idea of neo-classical literary criticism: decorum, imitation, wit, three unities, manners, poetic diction, satire and versification. But some of eighteenth century literary works were never sympathetic to the so-called modernist projects. They put the case against the harmful effects of the modernity and modernization. They often aspired to be pre-modern, anti-modern, and even post-modern. Arguably the resistance to and critique of modernity were almost contradictorily coexistent with the enthusiastic modernist program in the eighteenth century. The aim of this essay is to discuss the critique of modernity in some English literary works in the 18th century. In his satirical novel, Gulliveŕs Travels, Jonathan Swift tried to redefine the rational human being as animal rationis capax (that is, only capable of being rational). Joseph Addison in his tragedy, Cato, almost unconsciously revealed some hidden ideology of Western colonialism which ultimately resulted from modernity. In his novel, A Sentimental Journey, Laurence Sterne put an emphasis on the value of the sentimental in reaction against the instrumental reason. He longed for the sympathetic imagination for the civil society. Adam Smith also preferred moral sentiment to individualist egoism in his less well-known book, The Theory of The Moral Sentiment for the future ruthless capitalist society. These four authors all earnestly resisted and criticized the modernist ideologies and culture.