Date: November, 1682

"In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep; / But found their line too short, the well too deep; / And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1687

"But, when arrived at last to human race, / The Godhead took a deep considering space; / And, to distinguish man from all the rest, / Unlocked the sacred treasures of his breast; / And mercy mixt with reason did impart, / One to his head, the other to his heart; / Reason to rule, but mercy to f...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1697

"Lord, strike this Marble Heart, thy powerful Stroke / Will make a Flood gush from the cleaving Rock. / O draw all Nature's Sluces up, and drain / Her Magazines, which liquid Stores contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1697

"Prodigious was the Compass of his Mind, / Wide as his Love, which took in Humane Kind. / He Albion's Good, not Fame or Riches fought, / Generous, and open-hearted to a fault. / An unexhausted Magazin his Brain / Did all the Treasures of the Schools contain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"When Objects thro' the Senses Passage gain, / And fill with various Imag'ry the Brain, / Th' Ideas, which the Mind does thence perceive,/ To Think and Know the first Occasion give."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"The Cells, and little Lodgings, Thou canst see / In Mem'ry's Hoards and secret Treasury; / Dost the dark Cave of each Idea spy, / And see'st how rang'd the crouded Lodgers lye; / How some, when beckon'd by the Soul, awake, / While peaceful Rest their uncall'd Neighbours take."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1745

"Drink early then, my Friend, at Reason's Bowl, / And fill with wholesome Draughts thy youthful Soul. / If Wine or Gall the Recent Vessel stains, / Each Scent alike the faithful Cask retains."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: 1754

"All these are Reason's Treasures, Stores of Thought; / Reflection's unexhausted Funds, replete / With Matter for her own delightful Task."

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1763, 1767

"The guardian genius of his dawning thought, / Who wide disclos'd to wisdom's sacred ray / The eager inlets of his ample mind, / And pour'd upon each opening mental cell, / The virtue-forming scientific beam / With letter'd and religious radiance fill'd, / The fair expanses of his princely soul, ...

— Jones, Henry (1721-1770)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)