Date: 1735

"But if my Soul, / To this gross Clay confin'd, flutters on Earth / With less ambitious Wing; unskill'd to range / From Orb to Orb, where Newton leads the Way; / And view with piercing Eye the grand Machine, / Worlds above Worlds; subservient to his Voice, / Who, veil'd in clouded Majesty, alone ...

— Somervile, William (1675-1742)

Date: 1735, 1763

"Far as th' Almighty stretch'd his utmost line, / He pierc'd in thought, and view'd the vast design."

— Melmoth, William, the younger (bap. 1710, d. 1799)

Date: 1735, 1763

"'Midst foreign objects not employ'd to roam, / Thought, sadly active, still corrodes at home."

— Melmoth, William, the younger (bap. 1710, d. 1799)

Date: 1735

"God gave us Reason ... A faithful guide to comfort and to save, / Till the mind floats, like Peter on the wave."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1737

"As Years advance, th'abated Soul in most / Sinks to low Ebb, in second Childhood lost; / And feeble Age, dishonouring our Kind, / Robs all the Treasures of the wasted Mind"

— Hughes, Jabez (1685-1731)

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1742

"Its reign will spread thy glorious conquests far, / And still the tumults of thy ruffled breast: / Auspicious era! golden days, begin!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"At home a stranger, / Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, / And wondering at her own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"A soul immortal, spending all her fires, / Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, / Thrown into tumult, raptured, or alarm'd, / At aught this scene can threaten, or indulge, / Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, / To waft a feather, or to drown a fly."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Where roll my thoughts / To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise; / And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught; / Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross, / Rush on her in a throng, and close her round, / The prisoner of amaze!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)