Date: 1664

"The fancy, memory, and judgment are then extended (like so many limbs) upon the rack; all of them reaching with their utmost stress at nature; a thing so almost infinite and boundless, as can never fully be comprehended, but where the images of all things are always present."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1696

"O! that we cou'd incorporate, be one, / One Body, as we have been long one Mind: / That blended so, we might together mix, / And losing thus our Beings to the World, / Be only found to one anothers Joys."

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1704

"Who then wou'd court the Pomp of guilty Power, / When the Mind sickens at the weary Shew, / And flies to temporary Death for Ease."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1730

"What dreadful havoc in the human breast / The passions make, when unconfin'd, and mad, / They burst, unguided by the mental eye, / The light of reason; which in various ways / Points them to good, or turns them back from ill."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1739

"How poor thy Pow'r, how empty is thy Happiness, / When such a Wretch, as I appear to be, / Can ride thy Temper, harrow up thy Form, / And stretch thy Soul upon the Rack of Passion."

— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)