Date: 1710, 1714

"Every Man indeed who is not absolutely beside himself, must of necessity hold his Fancys under some kind of Discipline and Management."

— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)

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...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Where sits this bright Intelligence enthron'd, / With numberless Ideas pour'd around? Where Wisdom, Prudence, Contemplation stand, / And busie Fantoms watch her high Command:/ Where Sciences and Arts in order wait, / And Truths Divine compose her Godlike State"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1720

"His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest / Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast: / Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes, / A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams."

— Amhurst, Nicholas (1697-1742)

Date: February 22, 1723

"If a single thought / Were tinctur'd with disloyalty, this hand / Shou'd pierce my heart to drive the rebel out."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: September 10, 1726

"Now, according to my supposition, there being no active intelligent Being, who, by his Presence and Superintendency, governs and directs the Course of those vagabond Images, every thing in the Brain resembles the fortuitous concourse of Atoms."

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1744

"What wealth in Intellect, that sovereign power, / Which Sense and Fancy summons to the bar; / Interrogates, approves, or reprehends; / And from the mass those underlings import, / From their materials sifted, and refined, / And in Truth's balance accurately weigh'd, / Forms art and science, gove...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Then the inexpressive strain / Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams / Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, / And vales of bliss: the intellectual power / Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, / And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, / Sink to divine repose, and love and joy /...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)