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: 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)

Date: 1717

"I render back the Treasure of thy Heart: / When in some new fair Breast it finds a Room, And I shall lie neglected in my Tomb; / Remember, oh! remember, the fair She / Can never love thee, darling Youth! like me."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1718

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

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

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: 1724

"For Nature by fix'd Laws has wisely join'd / The bright Ideas of the conscious Mind / To Motions of the liquid spirit'ous Train, / Thro' previous Traces of the humid Brain; / These, when the Soul by drowsy Sleep oppress'd / Into her private Cell retires to Rest, / Thro' beaten Paths their wand'r...

— Needler, Henry (1690-1718); Duncombe, William (1690-1769)

Date: 1725-6

"[T]he body it self was suppos'd to be the infernal receptacle of the Soul, into which she descended as into a prison, from above; this was thought the sepulchre of the Soul, and the cave of Pluto"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744), Broome, W. and Fenton, E.

Date: 1734

"If I but close my eyes, strange images / In thousand forms and thousand colours rise, / Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears and ghosts, / An endless medley rush upon the stage, / And dance and riot wild in reason's court / Above control."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1735

"That Thought romantic Memory detains / In unknown cells and in aereal chains; / Imagination thence her flow'rs translates, / And Fancy emulous of God, creates."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1740

"Thus lawless conquerors our town restore, / With the sad marks of their inhuman power; / No art, nor time, such ravage can repair; / No superstructure can these ruins bear."

— Dixon, Sarah (1671/2-1765)