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Date: 1713

"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

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Date: 1714

"'Tis all in vain, this Rage that tears thy Bosom, / Like a poor Bird that flutters in its Cage, / Thou beat'st thy self to Death."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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Date: 1715

"Thy gentle Temper, / Is form'd with Passions mixt in due Proportion, / Where no one overbears nor plays the Tyrant, / But join in Nature's Business, and thy Happiness: / While mine disdaining Reason and her Laws, / Like all thou can'st imagine wild and furious, / Now drive me head-long on, now w...

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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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)

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Date: 1723, 1725

"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

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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)

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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)

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Date: 1730

"Impatient flouncing through the drifted heaps, / Stung with the thoughts of home; the thoughts of home / Rush on his nerves, and call their vigour forth / In many a vain effort."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

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Date: 1730

"Close crowds the shining atmosphere; and binds / Our strengthen'd bodies in its cold embrace, / Constringent; feeds, and animates our blood; / Refines our spirits, through the new-strung nerves, / In swifter sallies darting to the brain; / Where sits the soul, intense, collected, cool, / Bright ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

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Date: 1730

"Down from her Chariot light-wing'd Fancy flew, / And o'er him, loose, her Starry Mantle threw."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

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