Date: 1709
Some will tell us "What all our Senseless Dreams import, / Drest in a Thousand various Shapes, / Centaures, Chimæras, Bulls and Apes, / When Fancy is dispos'd her Airyship to Sport."
preview | full record— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)
Date: 1710, 1714
""For according as these Passions veer, my Interest veers, my Steerage varies; and I make alternately, now this, now that, to be my Course and Harbour."
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: 1712, 1796
"Unsteady nature, varying like the wind, / Hurries to each extreme th'unstable mind; / At sea becalm'd, we wish some brisker gales / Would on us rise, and fill our limber sails: / We have our wish; and straight our skiff is toss'd / So high, we are in danger to be lost."
preview | full record— Ellwood, Thomas (1639-1713)
Date: 1713, 1734
"And although it may, perhaps, seem an uneasy reflexion to some, that when they have taken a circuit through so many refined and unvulgar notions, they should at last come to think like other men: yet, methinks, this return to the simple dictates of Nature, after having wandered through the wild ...
preview | full record— Berkeley, George (1685-1753)
Date: 1715
"The Poet is in the right to say, that the Mind is a Part of Man: for it is, indeed, the informing, but not an assisting Part, as a Mariner in a Ship, and a Coachman in his Box, as the Academicks believ'd."
preview | full record— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)
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."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1718
"For from most Bodies, Dick, You know,/ Some little Bits ask Leave to flow; / And, as thro' these Canals They roll, / Bring up a Sample of the Whole. / Like Footmen running before Coaches, / To tell the Inn, what Lord approaches."
preview | full record— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)
Date: 1719
"It is as impossible as needless, to set down the innumerable Crowd of Thoughts that whirl'd through that great Thorowfair of the Brain, the Memory, in this Night's Time."
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1722
"Whither does my fancy carry me?"
preview | full record— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)
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)