Date: 1691

"Instead of those sage and grave Notions that used to fill my Head, 'twas cramm'd top full of Whimseys and Whirligigs, by the vehement agitation of my distemper'd Fancy, as ever a Carkase-shell with Instruments of Death and Murder."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1691

'My very Brains (as Manichæus's Skin) are stuff'd with Chaff."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1697

"Lord, strike this Marble Heart, thy powerful Stroke / Will make a Flood gush from the cleaving Rock. / O draw all Nature's Sluces up, and drain / Her Magazines, which liquid Stores contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Prodigious was the Compass of his Mind, / Wide as his Love, which took in Humane Kind. / He Albion's Good, not Fame or Riches fought, / Generous, and open-hearted to a fault. / An unexhausted Magazin his Brain / Did all the Treasures of the Schools contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"When Objects thro' the Senses Passage gain, / And fill with various Imag'ry the Brain, / Th' Ideas, which the Mind does thence perceive,/ To Think and Know the first Occasion give."

— 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: 1760-7

"But the heat gradually increasing, and in a few seconds more getting beyond the point of all sober pleasure, and then advancing with all speed into the regions of pain,--the soul of Phutatorius, together with all his ideas, his thoughts, his attention, his imagination, judgment, resolution, deli...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)