Date: 1718

"Reluctant Reason you'll in Fetters keep, / And lay th' insulting Judge within asleep."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"Now, when unbridled Passions use to reign, / While vanquish'd Reason wears the Victor's Chain, / See Pleasure, fair and smiling as the Morn, / (Soft Silks her Limbs, gay Flow'rs her Head adorn) / Which with her Breath perfumes the ambient Air, / While sporting Zephyrs heave her golden Hair, / Mi...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"Should you presumptuous, quit your safer Ground, / And seek the utmost Lines, which Vertue bound, / And on the Frontier to engage the Foe, With Reason 's weak collected Forces go, / You'll soon those nice, ill-guarded Limits pass, / Throw down your Arms, and fond her Feet embrace, / In her soft ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722, 1739

"Rather discard this baneful Love, throw off the weighty Chains, banish the fair one from your Breast, return to your Country, be a Blessing to you Parents, and take this glorious Opportunity to free you from the Bondage of your Mind as well as Body."

— Aubin, Penelope (1679?-1731?)

Date: 1734 [1735?]

"Slave to thy self, whilst Lord of all beside, / Surmount thy Weakness, or renounce thy Pride."

— Paget, Thomas Catesby, Lord Paget (1689-1742)

Date: 1741

"Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation, / Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation: / ''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain, / Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure, / And will rid me at last of your insolent power: / Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish, / And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish: / And while in your dust your dull ruins decay, / I'll snap off my cha...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1744

"What slave, unbless'd, who from to-morrow's dawn / Expects an empire? He forgets his chain, / And, throned in thought, his absent sceptre waves."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1753

"But this Agreement of Orgueil and his Wife, to bury Camilla's Father with Decency, by the Pleasure it gave her, renewed David's former Blindness, again enslaved his Mind to Orgueil, and fixed his Chain as strong as ever."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)

Date: 1744, 1753

"Thus my fancied Friends became my Plagues, and my real ones, by their Sufferings, tore up my Heart by the Roots, and frightened me into the bearing the insolent Persecutions of the others--I found my Mind in such Chains as are much worse than any Slavery of the Body."

— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)