Date: 1667

"It's to the Castle of the Heart a Wall / Of Brass: it is a Christians coat of Mail, / How many do for want of it miscarry!"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Mine eyes he closed, but open left the cell / Of fancy, my internal sight"

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1692

"Suspence that torture of the Mind, / Long had our Thoughts in doubts dark Cave confin'd"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1742

"Is not the mighty mind, that son of heaven, / By tyrant Life dethroned, imprison'd, pain'd? / By Death enlarged, ennobled, deified? / Death but entombs the body; Life, the soul."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

A disembodied mind may "In Fleury's brainy Cells, [its] Entrance hide: / Heedful attend, where Thought's dim Embryos lie: / Fan the speck'd Fire--but bend its Flame awry.

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1733, 1748

Memory is a "Surprising storehouse! in whose narrow womb / All things, the past, the present, and to come, / Find ample space, and large and mighty room."

— Pilkington, Laetitia (c. 1709-1750)

Date: 1789

"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)