Date: 1664

"But that benefit which I consider most in it [rhyme], because I have not seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy: for imagination in a poet is a faculty so wild and lawless, that, like an high-ranging spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest it outrun the judgment."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1664

"[B]ut when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seei...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1665

Minds are "like smooth paper never writ upon, / When folded up, by some impression / Marks will remain it never had before, / And ne're return to former smoothness more."

— Howard, Sir Robert (1626-1698)

Date: 1666

"Slow as a Drug, that in the body lies, / Our Phansy works; yours, like a Spirit, flyes"

— Killigrew, Sir William (bap. 1606, d. 1695)

Date: 1666

"'Twill much oblige the Nation, for they'l finde / Your Play stampt with the Figure of your Minde;"

— Killigrew, Sir William (bap. 1606, d. 1695)

Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"'Tis so wild [Wildblood's heart], that the Lady who has it in her keeping, would be glad she were well rid on't: it does so flutter about the Cage. 'Tis a meer Bajazet; and if it be not let out the sooner, will beat out the brains against the Grates."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: Jun 12, 1668; 1671

"But is not your heart of the nature of those Birds that breed in one Countrie, and goe to winter in another?"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1669, 1694

"I say this is a Spanker Madrigal, and newly minted in my Brain."

— Boyle, Roger, 1st Earl of Orrery (1621-1679)

Date: 1670

"Thus, like a captive in an isle confined, / Man walks at large, a prisoner of the mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1671

"Ay, on my Conscience and Soul the Palat of his Judgement is down; and by the way how do'st like that Metaphor or rather Catachresis?"

— Shadwell, Thomas (1642-1692)