Date: 1676

"But she has left a pleasing image of herself that wanders in my soul. It must not settle there."

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"The Senses stand around; the Spirits roam / To seize and bring the fleeting Objects home: / Thro' every Nerve and every Pore they pass."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1711

"And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking...

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1712

"Thro' the Sight's Pores round little Globules steal, / And the charm'd Senses a strange Pleasure feel. / With secret Joy the Soul it self is seiz'd, / And with th'agreeable Idolum pleas'd. / Which wand'ring from the Eyes by Ways unknown, / O'er the soft Bowels and warm Heart is thrown, / ...

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

Date: 1712

"When she to foreign Objects Audience gives, / Their Strokes and Motions in the Brain perceives, / As these Perceptions we Ideas name, / From her own Pow'r and active Nature came, / So when discern'd by Intellectual Light, / Her self her various Passions does excite, / To Ill her Hate, to Good he...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: Saturday, June 28, 1712

"By this means they awaken other Ideas of the same Sett, which immediately determine a new Dispatch of Spirits, that in the same manner open other Neighbouring Traces, till at last the whole Sett of them is blown up, and the whole Prospect or Garden flourishes in the Imagination."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)

Date: 1720

"His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest / Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast: / Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes, / A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams."

— Amhurst, Nicholas (1697-1742)

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: September 17, 1726

"This Train of Images continually revolv'd in our young Parson's Brain; and to preserve them from being jostled out by any intruding Foreigners, who might dispossess the Original Orthodox Inhabitants, the first Link of the Chain was rivetted by Pride, and the two last closed up by those two insep...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)