Date: 1712

"She [the mind] draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain, / Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train, / Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare, / Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1715

"No Beams of softning Pity touch thy Breast, / Too vile a Cell to harbour such a Guest."

— Brown, Thomas (bap. 1663, d. 1704)

Date: 1716

"If midst of Thoughts that crowd into thy Mind, / The Care of absent Friends a Place can find, / Retire a while from Warlike Noise and Throng / Into thy inmost Tent, and listen to my Song."

— Monck [née Molesworth], Mary (1677?-1715)

Date: 1716

"Led on by Reason, that blind Guide o'th'Mind. / Thro Labyrinths of Thought, and envious Ways, / It will conduct you to the fatal Place, / And leave you there."

— Anonymous

Date: 1718

"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"The Brain contains ten thousand Cells: / In each some active Fancy dwells; / Which always is at Work, and framing / The several Follies I was naming."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Whilst, as my System says, the Mind / Is to these upper Rooms confin'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1720

"Large is my forehead made, not wond'rous fair, / But room enough for all the Muses there."

— Sansom, Martha [née Fowke] (1690-1736)

Date: 1722

"[W]ho can tell / How each [image] awaken'd from its little cell / Starts forth, and how the soul's command it hears / And soon on fancy's theatre appears?"

— 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)