Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"But know that in the soul / Are many lesser faculties, that serve / Reason as chief; among these Fancy next / Her office holds; of all external things / Which the five watchful senses represent, / She forms imaginations, aery shapes, / Which Reason, joining or disjoining, frames / All what...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1679

"How can'st thou, cruel Soul, thus let me stand, / Barr'd out of Doors, whilst others do command / The choicest Room within thy yielding Breast, / Lodgings too good for such destructive Guests."

— Keach, Benjamin (1640-1704)

Date: 1683

"That once Experience would but cross the Jest, / And prove the highest Chamber furnisht best. / For Knowledge (Nature's guide) should quarter there, / And Judgment, her most trusty Councellour."

— Shipman, Thomas (1632-1680)

Date: 1683

"But for such Guests [Invention, Memory, and Wit] I have no fitting Room; / Or if I had, I've no such Guests to come."

— Shipman, Thomas (1632-1680)

Date: 1685

Tho' a World of dull Bullion your essence do's hold, / Scarce an Atom of Soul was cast into the Mould, / Room enough, and to spare lavish Nature allows, / But provides not a Tenant to suit with the House

— Wesley, Samuel, The Elder (bap. 1662, d. 1735)

Date: 1686

"In the Recesses of a private Breast, / I thought to entertain your charming Guest, / And never to have boasted of my Feast."

— Flatman, Thomas (1635-1688)

Date: 1691

"If Old and New i'th Brain together crowd, / How is it Room and Peace is them allow'd? /How do they and their Equipages come? /For if Material, they must take up room. / And tract of Time would hoard up such a Crop, / The crowded Atoms would the Channels stop, / And choke the Passages of Vision up."

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)

Date: 1691

"If thro the Eye the Vigorous Object darts / Into the Brain these small Aerial Parts; / How are they entertain'd, when Crowds do come? / How do the little narrow Cells make room? / Do all, that to an Object do belong, / Into one Place unmixt with others throng?"

— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)

Date: 1692

"Take bright Urania to thy Amorous breast, / To her thy flaming heart resign; / Void not the room, but change the guest, / And let thy sensual love commence Divine"

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1695

"The busie Crowd fills all the labouring Brain, / Bright Fancy's Work-house, where close Cells contain / Of Forms and Images an endless Train, / Which thither thro' the waking Senses glide, / And in fair Mem'ry's Magazine abide."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)