Date: January 16, 1717
"Madam, excuse this Absence of Mind; my animal Spirits had deserted the Avenues of my Senses, and retired to the Recesses of the Brain, to contemplate a beautiful Idea. I could not force the vagrant Creatures back again into their Posts, to move those Parts of the Body that express Civility."
preview | full record— Gay, John (1685-1732); Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)
Date: 1718
"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1718
"Whilst, as my System says, the Mind / Is to these upper Rooms confin'd."
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1718
"Mature, if not improv'd, by Time / Up to the Heart She loves to climb: / From thence, compell'd by Craft and Age, / She makes the Head her latest Stage."
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1720
"Hence Superstition, that tormenting guest, / That haunts with fancy'd fears the coward breas;"
preview | full record— Gay, John (1685-1732)
Date: 1720
"His Fancy still awake; the roving Guest / Usurps the Throne of Reason in his Breast: / Forms great Ideas, and religious Schemes, / A busy mime, and floats in golden Dreams."
preview | full record— Amhurst, Nicholas (1697-1742)
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."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: February 22, 1723
"If a single thought / Were tinctur'd with disloyalty, this hand / Shou'd pierce my heart to drive the rebel out."
preview | full record— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)
Date: 1724
"One Law of the Action of the Soul on the Body, & vice versa, seems to be, That upon such and such Motions produced in the Musical Instrument of the Body, such and such Sensations should arise in the Mind; and on such and such Actions of the Soul, such and such Motions in the Body should ensue; m...
preview | full record— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)
Date: 1724
"My thoughts are furies all!--and turn upon me! / I feel their whips!--They lash me with remorse! / My brain grows hot!--Hell glows in my mad bosom!"
preview | full record— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)