Date: 1712
"Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light? / She [the mind] moves unweary'd, as the active Fire, / And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1713
"In a Glass-House, the Workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh Coals, which seems to disturb the Fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the Passions, that the Mind may not languish."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: First performed February 17, 1720.
"My vital Flame / There, like a Taper on the holy Altar, / Shall waste away; till Heav'n relenting hear / Incessant Pray'rs for thee and for my self, / And wing my Soul to meet with thine in Bliss."
preview | full record— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)
Date: 1726, 1753
"But I have err'd; and, with delirious aim, / Would picture motion, and imprison flame. / He, who can light'ning's flash, to colours, bind, / May paint love's influence, on the burning mind."
preview | full record— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)
Date: 1730, 1744, 1746
"With swift wing / O'er land and sea imagination roams; / Or truth, divinely breaking on his mind, / Elates his being, and unfolds his powers; / Or in his breast heroic virtue burns."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1742
"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Roused at the sound, the exulting soul ascends, / And breathes her native air; an air that feeds / Ambitions high, and fans ethereal fires; / Quick kindles all that is Divine within us, / Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"The aspiring Soul, / Ardent and tremulous, like flame, ascends; / Zeal and Humility her wings to heaven."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1758, 1781
"Alas! All Souls are subject to like Fate, / All sympathizing with the Body's State; / Let the fierce Fever burn thro' ev'ry Vein, / And drive the madding Fury to the Brain, / Nought can the Fervour of his Frenzy cool, / But Aristotle's self's a Parish Fool!"
preview | full record— Hawkins, William (1721-1801)
Date: January 27, 1759.
"That it is vain to shrink from what cannot be avoided, and to hide that from ourselves which must some time be found, is a truth which we all know, but which all neglect, and perhaps none more than the speculative reasoner, whose thoughts are always from home, whose eye wanders over life, whose ...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)