Date: 1604

"For, as the Ratte running behinde a paynted cloth, betrayeth her selfe; even so, a Passion lurking in the heart, by thoughts and speech discovereth it selfe, according to the common Proverbe, ex abundantia cordis os loquitur, from the aboundance of heart, the tongue speaketh: for as a Riv...

— Wright, Thomas (c. 1561-1623)

Date: 1718

"And yet, slap dash, is All again / In every Sinew, Nerve, and Vein. / [the mind] Runs here and there, like Hamlet's Ghost; / While every where She rules the roast."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"As in a Hive's vimineous Dome, / Ten thousand Bees enjoy their Home; / Each does her studious Action vary, / To go and come, to fetch and carry: / Each still renews her little Labor; / Nor justles her assiduous Neighbour."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Your Horace owns, He various writ, / As wild, or sober Maggots bit: / And, where too much the Poet ranted, / The Sage Philosopher recanted."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1741

"I Might give another plain Simile to confirm the Truth of this [mnemonic method]. What Horse or Carriage can take up and bear away all the various, rude and unweildy Loppings of a branchy Tree at once? But if they are divided yet further so as to be laid close, and bound up in a more uniform Man...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Passions that flatter, or that slay, / Are beasts that fawn, or birds that prey."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"When Fancy's airy horse I strode, / And join'd the army on the road."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: w. 1805

"And I have scarcely pitied him; have felt / A reverence for a Being thus employ'd; / And thought that in the blind and awful lair / Of such a madness, reason did lie couch'd."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)

Date: 1850

The poet's mind is "best pleased / While she as duteous as the mother dove / Sits brooding, lives not always to that end, / But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on/ That drive her as in trouble through the groves."

— Wordsworth, William (1770-1850)