Date: 1728, 1729, 1736
"She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!"
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1731
"Where I would only demand of these Philosophers, Whether this their so expert Smith or Architect, the Active Understanding, when he goes about his Work, doth know what he is to do with these Phantasms before-hand, what he is to make of them, and unto what Shape to bring them? I...
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: 1735, 1745
"Only to trifle sev'nty Years away / In this frail Flesh, this Tenement of Clay, / In Doubt, in Fear, in Sorrow, in Despair, / Then cease to be, and vanish into Air?"
preview | full record— Trapp, Joseph (1679-1747)
Date: May 6, 1736
"To express this to us by Similitudes both just and beautiful; some Philosophers compare an human Soul to an empty Cabinet, of inexpressible Value for the Matter and Workmanship: and particularly, for the wonderful Contrivance of it, as having all imaginable Conveniencies within, for treasuring u...
preview | full record— Denne, John (1693-1767)
Date: 1742
"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."
preview | full record— Wesley, John and Charles
Date: 1743
"Dearly pays the soul / For lodging ill; too dearly rents her clay."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1745
"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1754
"The mind of man does often what princes and states have done. It gives a currency to brass and copper coined in the several philosophical and theological mints, and raises the value of gold and silver above that of their true standard."
preview | full record— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)
Date: 1759
"So Thoughts, when become too common, should lose their Currency; and we should send new metal to the Mint, that is, new meaning to the Press."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: January 1, 1779
"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."
preview | full record— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)