Date: 1700, 1717
"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement ...
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: 1709, 1810
"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]
"The Senses stand around; the Spirits roam / To seize and bring the fleeting Objects home: / Thro' every Nerve and every Pore they pass."
preview | full record— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)
Date: 1711
"When Fancy makes superior Flight her Aim, / Wing'd with this vig'rous, clear seraphick Flame, / She ranges Nature's universal Frame; / Bright Seeds of Thought from various Objects takes, / Whence her fair Scenes and Images she makes: / Spirits so swift, so fine, so bold, so strong, / Gave Milton...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1712, 1796
"How dangerous to let the Devil catch / The mind a roving from its inward watch!"
preview | full record— Ellwood, Thomas (1639-1713)
Date: 1712
"See, how resistless Orators perswade, / Draw out their Forces, and the Heart invade: / Touch ev'ry Spring and Movement of the Soul, / This Appetite excite, and That controul."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1712
"Objects, which thro' the Senses make their Way, / And just Impressions to the Soul convey, Give her Occasion first her self to move, / And to exert her Hatred, or her Love."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1712
"When she to foreign Objects Audience gives, / Their Strokes and Motions in the Brain perceives, / As these Perceptions we Ideas name, / From her own Pow'r and active Nature came, / So when discern'd by Intellectual Light, / Her self her various Passions does excite, / To Ill her Hate, to Good he...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1712
"Still travel to and fro the Nervous way, / And their Impressions to the Brain convey, / Where their Report the Vital Envoys make, / And with new Orders are remanded back."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1712
"Quick, as a darted Beam of Light, they [the spirits] go, / Thro' diff'rent Paths to diff'rent Organs flow, / Whence they reflect as swiftly to the Brain, / To give it Pleasure, or to give it Pain."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)