Date: 1709, 1810

"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

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

"Quick, as a darted Beam of Light, they [the spirits] go, / Thro' diff'rent Paths to diff'rent Organs flow, / Whence they reflect as swiftly to the Brain, / To give it Pleasure, or to give it Pain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Which by her secret uncontested Nod / Her Messengers the Spirits sends abroad, / Thro' ev'ry nervous Pass, and ev'ry vital Road. / To fetch from ev'ry distant Part a Train, / Of outward Objects to enrich the Brain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"And tho' these Spirits, which obsequious go, / Know not the Paths, thro' which they ready flow, / Nor can our Mind instruct them in their Way, / Of all their Roads as ignorant, as they; / Yet seldom erring they attain their End, / And reach that single Part, which we intend."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"How Spirits, which for Sense and Motion serve, / Unguided find the perforated Nerve. / Thro' ev'ry dark Recess pursue their Flight, / Unconscious of the Road and void of Sight, / Yet certain of the End still guide their Motions right."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1724

"For Nature by fix'd Laws has wisely join'd / The bright Ideas of the conscious Mind / To Motions of the liquid spirit'ous Train, / Thro' previous Traces of the humid Brain; / These, when the Soul by drowsy Sleep oppress'd / Into her private Cell retires to Rest, / Thro' beaten Paths their wand'r...

— Needler, Henry (1690-1718); Duncombe, William (1690-1769)

Date: 1744

"Commanding, with omnipotence of thought, / Creations new in Fancy's field to rise! / Souls, that can grasp whate'er the Almighty made, / And wander wild through things impossible!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)