Date: 1723

"Thou know'st the secret Soul's imperial Throne / Surrounded with thick Darkness, like thy own, / Where she to all the Senses Audience gives, / Appoints their Tasks, their Messages receives, / And passes Judgement in her Sov'reign Court / On every Envoy's true or false Report / How her sole Nod...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Enormous Bacchanalian Pleasures, loose / Milesian Feasts and Luxury in Use / Among abandon'd Sibarites, were dear / To all the Natives sunk in Riot here, / As they to brutal Instincts had resign'd / Celestial Reason's Empire of the Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Kings of the Empire of the Soul possest, / Who sit enthron'd secure in every Breast / In Civil Strength, and Glory will encrease, / And triumph mid'st the Joys of lasting Peace."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Vice had usurp'd the Empire of his Soul."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"[C]an Arms o'er Reason Conquests win, / And triumph o'er the awful Judge within?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Can Kings the Empire of the Soul invade?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Tho' now, 'tis true, the strong Temptation's Force / Suspends Religion, and diverts its Course; / Yet still the Pow'r that chiefly rules your Soul, / And will I trust your future Life controul, / Is heav'nly Virtue, which, tho' now opprest / It sleeps a while unactive in your Breast, / Will, rou...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

The "conscious Pow'r, the Judge within," may "With Frowns and awful Menaces begin / To fill [one] with Remorse and secret Fear"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1760-7

"Could no such thing as favour and affection enter this sacred Court [of Conscience]:--Did Wit disdain to take a bribe in it;--or was asham'd to shew its face as an advocate for an unwarrantable enjoyment?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: April 1761

"What the grave triflers on this busy scene, / When they make use of this word Reason, mean, / I know not; but according to my plan, / 'Tis Lord Chief-Justice in the court of man"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)