Date: 1712

"O'er Ministerial Senses [the soul] does preside, / To all their various Provinces divide, / Each Member move, and ev'ry Motion guide."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Which by her secret uncontested Nod / Her Messengers the Spirits sends abroad, / Thro' ev'ry nervous Pass, and ev'ry vital Road. / To fetch from ev'ry distant Part a Train, / Of outward Objects to enrich the Brain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"The Heart, as said, from its contracted Cave / On the Left Side, Ejects the bounding Wave."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"With Scarlet Honours re-adorn'd the Tide / Leaps on, and bright with more than Tyrian Pride, / Advances to the Heart, and fills the Cave / On the Left Side, which the first Motion gave."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"And tho' these Spirits, which obsequious go, / Know not the Paths, thro' which they ready flow, / Nor can our Mind instruct them in their Way, / Of all their Roads as ignorant, as they; / Yet seldom erring they attain their End, / And reach that single Part, which we intend."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"How Spirits, which for Sense and Motion serve, / Unguided find the perforated Nerve. / Thro' ev'ry dark Recess pursue their Flight, / Unconscious of the Road and void of Sight, / Yet certain of the End still guide their Motions right."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Thou see'st from whence her Colours Fancy takes, / Of what Materials she her Pencil makes / By which she paints her Scenes with such Applause, / And in the Brain ten thousand Landskips draws."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Thou know'st the downy Chains that softly bind / Our slumb'ring Sense, when waiting Objects find / No Avenue left open to the Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1726

"I know in descriptions of this nature the scenes are generally supposed to grow out of the author's imagination, and if they are not charming in all their parts, the reader never imputes it to the want of sun or soil, but to the barrenness of invention"

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1746

Imagination may play "Unbridled in the fields of day, / Thro endless time, and boundless space, / Continue unrestrain'd her race"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)