Date: 1703

"Distorted Nature shakes at the Controul, / With strong Convulsions rends my strugling Soul; / Each vital String cracks with th' unequal Strife, / Departing Love racks like departing Life; / Yet there the Sorrow ceases with the Breath, / But Love each day renews th' torturing scene of Death."

— Egerton [née Fyge; other married name Field], Sarah (1670-1723)

Date: 1704

"As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass, / Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass; / A little we discover; but allow, / That more remains unseen, than Art can show: / So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve; / (It's feeble Eye intent on Things above) / High as We may, We lift our Rea...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1705, 1712

"[W]ise Men on sound Reason ground Belief: / How that they find what for the Soul is good, / As by their Smell and Taste they judge their Food; / For who but each Man's Reason ought to try / 'Tis Faith, who must be sav'd or damn'd thereby."

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1706

"The Marble Heart groans with an inward Wound: / Blaspheming Souls of harden'd Steel / Shriek out amaz'd at the new Pangs they feel, / And dread the Eccho's of the Sound."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706

"But FANCY, that unease Guest / Still holds a Lodging in our Beast; / She finds or frames Vexations still, / Her self the greatest Plague we feel."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1707, 1710

"Nor should such ruffling Storms molest / The Halcyon Smoothness of thy Breast / Doubt, Avarice, and the pale Multitude / Of greedy Harpyes, which intrude / Ev'n at our Meals, no Entrance find / On the strong Armour of your Mind, / Which You can straiten or unbend."

— Cobb, Samuel (bap. 1675, d. 1713)

Date: 1709

"They fed the Body, but did feast the Mind."

— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)

Date: 1709

"Honour! the fatal Tumor of the Mind; / From which our Modern Gentry take their Bent, / And think they're Noble, if they're Insolent."

— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"Reflection is the last and greatest Bliss: / When turning backwards with inverted Eyes, / The Soul it self and all its Charms, surveys, / The deep Impressions of Coelestial Grace / And Image of the Godhead."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1710

Honour is a "Maggot that infects the giddy Brains / Of Cowards, Foold, rich Knaves, and Curtizans"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)