Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"A solemn air, and the best comforter / To an unsettled fancy, cure thy brains, / Now useless, boiled within thy skull."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"The charm dissolves apace, / And as the morning steals upon the night, / Melting the darkness, so their rising senses / Begin to chase the ignorant fumes that mantle / Their clearer reason."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"Their understanding / Begins to swell, and the approaching tide / Will shortly fill the reasonable shores / That now lie foul and muddy."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: w. 1610-11, 1623

"You cram these words into mine ears against / The stomach of my sense."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1675

"[Y]our heart more stony was then Coblers wax i'th' dog days"

— Duffett, Thomas (fl. 1674-1678); William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Date: 1675

"Work, work, my hearts of Gold."

— Duffett, Thomas (fl. 1674-1678); William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Date: 1704

"Those Ancient Men of Genius who rifled Nature by the Torch-Light of Reason even to her very Nudities, have been run a-ground in this unknown Channel; the Wind has blown out the Candle of Reason, and left them all in the Dark."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1704

"This is what I quote them for, and this is all my Argument demands; the deepest Search into the Region of Cause and Consequence, has found out just enough to leave the wisest Philosopher in the dark, to bewilder his Head, and drown his Understanding."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1704

"No Pen can describe it, no Tongue can express it, no Thought conceive it, unless some of those who were in the Extremity of it; and who, being touch'd with a due sense of the sparing Mercy of their Maker, retain the deep Impressions of his Goodness upon their Minds, tho' the Danger be past: and ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)