Date: 1723

"Thou know'st the secret Soul's imperial Throne / Surrounded with thick Darkness, like thy own, / Where she to all the Senses Audience gives, / Appoints their Tasks, their Messages receives, / And passes Judgement in her Sov'reign Court / On every Envoy's true or false Report / How her sole Nod...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"And now his Spirits by the Impulse move / Of the new Guest [Love], while soft unpractis'd Pains / Throb in his Breast and thrill along his Veins."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1726

"Their proper country, says Philander, is the breast of a good man: for I think they are most of them the figures of Virtues."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1704-5; 1731

"For, what does the Ambitious Prince or the Licentious Multitude; what does the Covetous, and Revengeful, or the Debauched Sinner; but only chuse to be a Servant to Passion, instead of a Follower of Right Reason?"

— Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729)

Date: 1733

The "fond Breast" may be populated by "jealous Demons"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1746

Imagination may "Bring what ideas she can find / To the great storehouse of the Mind, / Where Judgement ever sits serene, / To rule the vague and sportive queen"

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: 1754

"If I cannot, draw out Cacus from his Den; I may pluck the Villain from my own Breast. I cannot cleanse the Stables of Augeas; but I may cleanse my own Heart from Filth and Impurity: I may demolish the Hydra of Vices within me; and should be careful too, that while I lop off ...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1754

"And let every deformed Person comfort himself with reflecting; that tho' his Soul hath not the most convenient and beautiful Apartment, yet that it is habitable: that the Accommodation will serve in an Inn upon the Road: that he is but Tenant for Life, or (more properly) at Will: and that, while...

— Hay, William (1695-1755)

Date: 1765 [1764]

"I have often suspected Isabella's indifference to my son: a thousand circumstances crowd on my mind that confirm that suspicion."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)