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Date: 1700, 1705

"Wit is the Fruitful Womb where Thoughts conceive, / Sense is the Vital Heat which Life and Form must give: / Wit is the Teeming Mother brings them forth, / Sense is the Active Father gives them Worth."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1706

"But FANCY, that unease Guest / Still holds a Lodging in our Beast; / She finds or frames Vexations still, / Her self the greatest Plague we feel."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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Date: 1715-1720

"Yet should the Fears that wary Mind suggests / Spread their cold Poison thro' our Soldier's Breasts, / My Javelin can revenge so base a Part, / And free the Soul that quivers in thy Heart."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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Date: 1741

"Says Body to Mind, ''Tis amazing to see, / We're so nearly related yet never agree, / But lead a most wrangling strange sort of life, / As great plagues to each other as husband and wife.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

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Date: 1743

"Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon. / Are they more kind than He who struck the blow, / Who bid it do His errand in our hearts, / And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive, / And bring it back a true and endless peace?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1743

"Is this the cause Death flies all human thought? / Or is it Judgment by the Will struck blind, / (That domineering mistress of the soul,) / Like him so strong, by Delilah the fair?"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

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Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Then the inexpressive strain / Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams / Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, / And vales of bliss: the intellectual power / Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, / And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, / Sink to divine repose, and love and joy /...

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

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Date: w. 1739, 1762

Melancholy's "transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

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Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"How then should matron Mind, with filial fear, / Judge all the embryo thoughts engender'd there"

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

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Date: 1820

"Clothe it in words, and bid it clasp his throne / In intercession; bend thy soul in prayer, / And like a suppliant in some gorgeous fane, / Let the will kneel within thy haughty heart."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

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