Date: 1704

"Mean while Medea, seiz'd with fierce Desire, / By Reason strives to quench the raging Fire; / But strives in vain!"

— Tate, Nahum (c. 1652-1715)

Date: 1704

"Wretch, from thy Virgin-Breast this Flame expel, / And soon--Oh cou'd I, all wou'd then be well!"

— Tate, Nahum (c. 1652-1715)

Date: 1708

"Now, when this Form prevails to such a degree that all others are nothing before it, but it remains alone, so as to consume, with the glory of its Light, whatsoever stands; in it's way; then it is properly compared to those Glasses, which reflect Light upon themselves, and burn every thing else;...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

Date: 1710 [1719, 1729]

"And as great Phoebus sometimes rages high, / And scorches with his Beams the sultry Sky: / So when the Heart with Rage, or flaming Ire, / Grows warm, or burns with Love's consuming Fire: / The catching Virals spread the Flames afar."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1712

"The Sun (when Summer-heats the Spring succeed) / Changes the tarnish'd Verdure of the Mead: / The dry'd up Rills no longer murmuring creep / O'er the smooth Pebbles, and invite to sleep, / But buzzing Insects make an uncouth Noise, / And sulph'rous Vapours thunder in the Skies. / So when the Hea...

— Cobb, Samuel (1675-1713); Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718); Quillet, Claudius (fl.1640-1656)

Date: 1712, 1719

"God of the Grape, I'll wisely use / Thy heav'nly Gifts, nor will disclose / Thy sacred Rites; do thou asswage / My burning Soul, and curb thy Rage: / Lest to new hateful Crimes I run: / Lest Vanity seize Reason's Throne, / And wretched I to open Day / The Secrets of the Night betray, / And my He...

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1715

There may be "one Spark of Pity left behind / To form the least Impression on your Mind"

— Brown, Thomas (bap. 1663, d. 1704)

Date: 1715-1720

"'Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover'd immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1718 [first published 1684-1694]

"Have you not then observed how a Man's Reason (like fire, scarce visible and just going out) retires into it self, and what with inactivity and dullness, every little flitting object so flatters and endangers the extinguishing it, that there remains but some obscure indications that the Man is a...

— Plutarch (c. 46-120)

Date: 1721, 1722

"Nature, industriously favourable to men, hath not bounded itself in giving desires to men, she was willing that we should have them too, and that we should be the animated instruments of their felicity: she hath put in us the flame of the passions, to make them live easy."

— Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755)