Date: 1704
"As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass, / Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass; / A little we discover; but allow, / That more remains unseen, than Art can show: / So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve; / (It's feeble Eye intent on Things above) / High as We may, We lift our Rea...
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1712
"Our Intellectual, like the Body's Eye, / Whilst in the Womb, no Object can descry; / Yet is dispos'd to entertain the Light, / And judge of Things when offer'd to the Sight."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1728
"Ye Fairy Prospects then, / Ye Beds of Roses, and ye Bowers of Joy, / Farewell! Ye Gleamings of departing Peace, / Shine out your last! The yellow-tinging Plague / Internal Vision taints, and in a Night / Of livid Gloom Imagination wraps."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1742
"Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: / As these are useless when the sun is set; / So those, but when more glorious Reason shines. / Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye, / That sedentary shadow travels hard."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1742
"Through chinks, styled organs, dim Life peeps at light; / Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day; / All eye, all ear, the disembodied power."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1743
"Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend; / The conscious Moon, through every distant age,/ Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall / On Contemplation's eye her purging ray."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1743
"I'll range the plenteous intellectual field; / And gather every thought of sovereign power, / To chase the moral maladies of man; / Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies, / Though natives of this coarse penurious soil; / Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing, / Refined, exalte...
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744, 1772, 1795
"But beyond / This energy of truth, whose dictates bind / Assenting reason, the benignant sire, / To deck the honour'd paths of just and good, / Has added bright imagination's rays."
preview | full record— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)
Date: 1759
"Beware of Self-deceit, that wily cheat, / Which blinds bright Intellect with vain Conceit; / Conceit sees Nothing in its real Light, / All Things alike delude its cheated Sight."
preview | full record— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)
Date: 1765
"Let those, whose arts to fatal paths betray, / The soul with passion's gloom tempestuous blind, / And snatch from Reason's ken th'auspicious ray / Truth darts from Heaven to guide th'exploring mind."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)