Date: 1718

"Drawn by their Pray'r, from Heav'n descending Dews / Cheer the fair Plant, and Heat Divine infuse: / While watchful they destroy'd the springing Weeds, / Baneful to Virtue, which our Bosom breeds, / Nature's spontaneous Growth, that no Assistant needs."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"A Blow of Virtues, all of heav'nly Kind, / Mingled their Beauties, and adorn'd your Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"You from your Breast must root Religion's Weed, / Not only sin, but disbelieve your Creed."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"May not this cheering Breath, this soothing Air, / Nourish too fast Vain-Glory's secret Root, / And make its rank pernicious Branches shoot, / Till on your Mind they baneful Blossoms spread, / And drop malignant Dews on Virtue's tender Head?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1719

"Pray note, all this was the Fruit of a disturb'd Mind, an impatient Temper, made as it were desperate, by the long Continuance of my Troubles, and the Disappointments I had met in the Wreck I had been on Board of, and where I had been so near the obtaining what I so earnestly long'd for, viz. so...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1713, 1719

"This Fancy having once taken Root, grew apace, and branch'd it self forth into a thousand vain Conceits."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: First performed February 17, 1720.

"The Threats of Death are nothing; / Tho' thy last Message shook his Soul, as Winds / On the bleak Hills bend down some lofty Pine; / Yet still he held his Root; till I found Means, / Abating somewhat of thy first Demand, / If not to make him wholly ours, at least / To gain sufficient to our End."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1722

"Zeno, and his scholars the Stoicks, took an odd fancy, that the passions were not interwoven with the constitution of man, and so were no part of his nature, but the blemishes and vicious excrescencies of the soul, and therefore ought to be entirely cut off; noxious weeds, that poison'd the mind...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"Consider; Gwendolen, my lasting Passion; / A Passion, that, through Time, takes deeper Root; / A Love, that, spight of Absence, hourly grows; / In spight even of Despair:--Yet, will I not / Despair; since Fortune favours thus my Hopes."

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1723

"Cease, prithee, Muse, thus to infest / The barren Region of my Breast, / Which never can an Harvest yield, / Since Weeds of Noise o'er-run the Field."

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)