Date: Tuesday, September 11, 1711
"I am unhappily far gone in Building, and am one of that Species of Men who are properly denominated Castle-Builders, who scorn to be beholden to the Earth for a Foundation, or dig in the Bowels of it for Materials; but erect their Structures in the most unstable of Elements, the Air, Fancy alone...
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
Date: 1711
"The scorcht and pathless Desarts of the Brain, / Want proper Caves and Cells to entertain / A Crowd of airy Forms and long Ideal Train."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1711
"These active Liquors, which Admission find / Thro' the strait Paths, and leave the coarse behind, / Swift to the inmost Rooms their Passage beat, / And crowd around the Soul's Imperial Seat."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1711
"And reflecting on what is transacted within us, it seems to me a very diverting Scene to think when we strive to recollect something that does not then occur; how nimbly those volatil Messengers of ours will beat through all the Paths, and hunt every Enclosure of the Organ set aside for thinking...
preview | full record— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)
Date: 1712
"Soon as the Foetus to the Womb is join'd, / And founds a Temple for th'Immortal Mind."
preview | full record— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)
Date: Thursday, July 3rd, 1712
"Babylon in Ruins is not so melancholy a Spectacle" as a distracted Person, whose "imagination is troubled" and whose "whole soul [is] disordered and confused."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712
"The Pineal Gland, which many of our Modern Philosophers suppose to be the Seat of the Soul, smelt very strong of Essence and Orange-flower Water, and was encompassed with a kind of Horny Substance, cut into a thousand little Faces or Mirrours, which were imperceptible to the naked Eye, insomuch ...
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712
"We observed a long Antrum or Cavity in the Sinciput, that was filled with Ribbons, Lace and Embroidery, wrought together in a most curious Piece of Network, the Parts of which were likewise imperceptible to the naked Eye. Another of these Antrums or Cavities was stuffed with invisible Billetdoux...
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712
"When we had thoroughly examined this Head with all its Apartments, and its several kinds of Furniture, we put up the Brain, such as it was, into its proper Place, and laid it aside under a broad Piece of Scarlet Cloth, in order to be prepared, and kept in a great Repository of Dissections."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 1712
"Our Operator, before he engaged in this Visionary Dissection, told us, that there was nothing in his Art more difficult than to lay open the Heart of a Coquet, by reason of the many Labyrinths and Recesses which are to be found in it, and which do not appear in the Heart of any other Animal."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)