Date: w. 1677, 1702

"Vain wandring Thoughts, that crowd within my Breast / Do oft obstruct my Soul from Solid Rest; / like to vagrant Clouds, obscure the Mind / Which should to serious watching be inclin'd."

— Mollineux [née Southworth], Mary (1651-1695)

Date: 1709

"How soft the first ideas prove, / Which wander through our minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1736

"As she was one day sitting alone in her Garden, ruminating on the last Words of her Father, and the strict Injunction laid on her concerning the Carcanet, Emotions, to which hitherto she had been a Stranger, began to diffuse themselves throughout her Mind."

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

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)