Date: February 22, 1723
"For 'tis th' infirmity of noblest minds, / When ruffled with an unexpected woe, / To speak what settled prudence wou'd conceal: / As the vex'd ocean working in a storm, / Oft brings to light the wrecks which long lay calm, / In the dark bosom of the secret deep."
preview | full record— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)
Date: 1732
"Malice, and Lust, voracious Birds of Prey, / That out-soar Reason, and our Wishes sway; / Desires' wild Seas, on which the wise are tost, / By Pilot Indolence, are safely crost."
preview | full record— Mitchell, Joseph (c. 1684-1738)
Date: 1738
A person may be called the same person by "a continual Superaddition of the like Consciousness ... Just as a Ship is called the same Ship, after the whole Substance is changed by frequent Repairs; or a River is called the same River, though the Water of it be every Day new."
preview | full record— Clarke, Samuel (1675-1729)
Date: 1742
"I wake, emerging from a sea of dreams / Tumultuous; where my wreck'd desponding thought, / From wave to wave of fancied misery, / At random drove, her helm of reason lost."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1742
"But their hearts wounded, like the wounded air, / Soon close; where pass'd the shaft, no trace is found. / As from the wing no scar the sky retains, / The parted wave no furrow from the keel, / So dies in human hearts the thought of death."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744
"Eternity's vast ocean lies before thee; / There, there, Lorenzo, thy Clarissa sails. / Give thy mind sea-room; keep it wide of earth, / That rock of souls immortal; cut thy cord; / Weigh anchor; spread thy sails; call every wind; / Eye thy great Pole-star; make the land of life."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1756, 1766
"This is beyond the reach of our conception. Imagination cannot plumb her line so low."
preview | full record— Amory, Thomas (1690/1-1788)
Date: 1760-7
"But here, you must distinguish--the thought floated only in Dr. Slop's mind, without sail or ballast to it, as a simple proposition; millions of which, as your worship knows, are every day swiming quietly in the middle of the thin juice of a man's understanding, without being carried backwards o...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1765
""Unwise, who, tossing on the watery way, / All to the storm th'unfetter'd sail devolve; / Man more unwise resigns the mental sway, / Born headlong on by passion's keen resolve."
preview | full record— Beattie, James (1735-1803)
Date: 1766
"Should you but discompose the tide, / On which Ideas wont to ride, / Ferment it with a yeasty Storm, / Or with high Floods of Wine deform."
preview | full record— Lloyd, Evan (1734-1776)