Date: w. 1718 [first published 1907]

"All this says Richard is but Nonsense / For whats the Will without the Conscience / That mighty Pow'r by whom the thought / Is from Kings Bench to Chanc'ry brought. / What Seat for Her have You assign'd / When She may view and sway the mind?"

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1727

"But each Man's secret Standard in his Mind, / That casting Weight, Pride adds to Emptiness"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1735

"Hope may some boundless Future Bliss embrace, / But What, or When, or How, or Where, / Are Mazes all, which Fancy runs in vain"

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1735

"Nor can the narrow Cells of human Brain / The vast immeasurable Thought contain"

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1736, 1743

"Th' identick Shape thy Fancy would retain, / Engraven in eternal Characters / While Memory holds its Empire in the Brain."

— Wesley, Samuel, the Younger (1691-1739)

Date: 1748

"Such callous Hearts to no Impression yield, / All-guarded with Corruption's seven-fold Shield;"

— Warton, Thomas, the elder (1688-1745)

Date: 1759

"Words are but Pictures, tru or False Designd / To Draw the Lines, and Features of the Minde"

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"Their [pedants'] poring upon black and white too subtly / Has turn'd the Insides of their Brains to motly."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"Their [pedants'] constant overstraining of the Mind / Distorts the Brain, as Horses break their Wind / Or rude Confusions of the Things they read / Get up, like noxious Vapours, in the Head, / Until they have their constant Wanes and Fulls, / And Changes in the Insides of their Skulls."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"Whence Multitudes of reverend Men and Critics / Have got a kind of intellectual Rickets, / And by th'immoderate Excess of Study / Have found the sickly Head t'outgrow the Body.

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)