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Date: w. 1736, 1749

"Why should I drag along this life I hate, / Without one thought to mitigate the weight? / Whence this mysterious bearing to exist, / When every joy is lost, and every hope dismissed? / In chains and darkness wherefore should I stay, / And mourn in prison, while I keep the key?"

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

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Date: 1749

"Open a window in our breast, / That each our heart may see"

— Wesley, John and Charles

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Date: 1751

"But could our Eyes behold the deep Recess, / Where soft Pamela's Thoughts in private rest, / You'd find, in spite of Hymen's sacred Vows, / Ten Hours in Twelve that she abhors her Spouse"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

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Date: 1754

One may be raised on "Virtue's turret"

— Bowden, Samuel (fl. 1733-1761)

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Date: 1755

"Thy answer is in more than words express'd, / I read it through the window in thy breast"

— Wesley, John and Charles

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Date: 1762-3

"Within the brain's most secret cells / A certain Lord Chief Justice dwells, / Of sovereign power, whom, one and all, / With common voice, we Reason call."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1762-3

"Men of sound parts, who, deeply read, / O'erload the storehouse of the head / With furniture they ne'er can use"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1763

"Try, thou State-Juggler, ev'ry paltry art, / Ransack the inmost closet of my heart / Swear Thou'rt my Friend; by that base oath make way / Into my breast, and flatter to betray."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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Date: 1764

"Have I well weigh'd the great, the noble part / I'm now to play? have I explored my heart, / That labyrinth of fraud, that deep, dark cell, / Where, unsuspected, e'en by me, may dwell / Ten thousand follies?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.