Date: 1724
"Those Reflections began to prey upon my Comforts, and lessen the Sweets of my other Enjoyments: They might be said to have gnaw'd a Hole in my Heart before; but now they made a Hole quite thro' it; now they eat into all my pleasant things; made bitter every Sweet, and mix'd my Sighs with every S...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1728
"But thro' the Heart / Should Jealousy it's Venom once diffuse, / 'Tis then delightful Misery no more, / But Agony unmixt, incessant Rage, / Corroding every Thought, and blasting all / The Paradise of Love."
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1730
"O save me from the tumult of the soul! / From the wild beasts within!"
preview | full record— Thomson, James (1700-1748)
Date: 1732
"He that wants the proper materials of thought, may think and meditate for ever to no purpose: those cobwebs spun by scholars out of their own brains being alike unserviceable, either for use or ornament."
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1734
"Hail, holy souls, no more confin'd / To limbs and bones that clog the mind; / Ye have escap'd the snares, and left the chains behind."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1739
"My Heart flutters within me for Fear of him, like a Bird that's hunted in a Cage."
preview | full record— Bellamy, Daniel, the Elder (b. 1687)
Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741
"Don't your Heart ake for me? --I am sure mine flutter'd about like a Bird in a Cage new caught."
preview | full record— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)
Date: 1741
"I Might give another plain Simile to confirm the Truth of this [mnemonic method]. What Horse or Carriage can take up and bear away all the various, rude and unweildy Loppings of a branchy Tree at once? But if they are divided yet further so as to be laid close, and bound up in a more uniform Man...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1741
"He supposed that a philosopher's brain was like a great forest, where ideas ranged like animals of several kinds; that those ideas copulated and engendered conclusions; that when those different species copulate, they bring forth monsters and absurdities; that the major is the male, the minor th...
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)
Date: 1742
"Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; / In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar / Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; / Dismounted every great and glorious aim; / Embruted every faculty divine; / Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)