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Date: 1700, 1702

"O could I think that he had ever known / My hidden flame, shame and confusion / Would force my Virgin soul to leave her mansion, / And certain Death ensue."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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Date: 1710, 1734

"They indeed, who hold the soul of man to be only a thin vital flame, or system of animal spirits, make it perishing and corruptible as the body, since there is nothing more easily dissipated than such a being, which it is naturally impossible should survive the ruin of the tabernacle, wherein it...

— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)

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Date: 1713

"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

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Date: w 1710, 1720

"Whilst like the Lamp's last Flame, their trembling Souls / Are on the Wing to leave their mortal Goals."

— Ramsay, Allan (1684-1758)

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Date: 1742

"Speech ventilates our intellectual fire; / Speech burnishes our mental magazine, / Brightens for ornament, and whets for use."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1745

"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1756

"Oh, God of Sleep! arise, and spread / Thy healing vapours round my head; / To thy friendly mansions take, / My soul that burns, / Till he returns, / For whom alone I wish to wake."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

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Date: 1760-7

"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1772, 1810

"His vital spark her earthly cell forsook, / And into air her fleeting progress took."

— Jones, Sir William (1746-1794)

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Date: 1785

"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.