Date: 1685

"These bugbears of the mind, this inward hell, / No rays of outward sunshine can dispel; / But nature and right reason must display / Their beams abroad, and bring the darksome soul to day."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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, 1712

"See how my melting Passions hast and run, / Like Virgin-wax before the scorching Sun!"

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

One may be " to a narrow Dungeon confin'd, / A Cave that darkens and restrains [the] Mind"

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"When first my Soul put on its fleshly Load, / It was Imprison'd in the dark Abode; / My Feet were Fetters, my Hands Manacles, / My Sinews Chains, and all Confinement else; / My Bones the Bars of my loath'd Prison grate; / My Tongue the Turn-key, and my Mouth the Gate."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1687

"But, when arrived at last to human race, / The Godhead took a deep considering space; / And, to distinguish man from all the rest, / Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast; / And mercy mixt with reason did impart, / One to his head, the other to his heart; / Reason to rule, but mercy to f...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1687

"Such Beings Philosophick heads relate / Of heavenly stamp"

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

Date: 1687

"Our Souls are in one mutual Knot combin'd, / Not Common Passion, Dull and Unrefin'd"

— Ayres, Philip (1638-1712)

Date: 1688

"[C]urst Suspitions" may haunt the "tortur'd Mind"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1688

"The meager Monster doth neither harm nor good, / But like the wain, or wax, or ebb, or flood, / She shuns as what her age doth most detaste, / Where Heaven-bred Honour in the noble Mind, / From out the Cavern of the Breast proceeds"

— Scot, Walter (b. 1613, d. in or after 1688)