Date: 1762-3

"Or, with down-bending eye, seem wrought / Into a labyrinth of thought, / Where Reason wanders still in doubt, / And, once got in, cannot get out,"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen, / When I say wit, I wisdom mean) / Where, (such the practice of the court, / Which legal precedents support) / Not one idea is allow'd / To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, / But ere it can obtain the grace / Of holding in the brain a place, / Before the chief i...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"This glorious system form'd for man / To practise when and how he can, / If the five senses in alliance / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroken, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"He [Reason], upright Justicer, no doubt / Ad libitum puts in and out, / Adjusts and settles in a trice / What virtue is, and what is vice."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"Let those who rigid judgment own / Submissive bow at Judgment's throne, / And if they of no value hold / Pleasure, till pleasure is grown cold, / Pall'd and insipid, forced to wait / For Judgment's regular debate / To give it warrant, let them find / Dull subjects suited to their mind."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762

"I'm speaking of thy mind alone; / Where keen reproaches all resort, / Where biting scandal holds her court; / From whence she throws her pois'nous dart / At ev'ry unprovoking heart."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

Love of fame may spur one to deeds of pith, "where courage, tried / In Reason's court, is amply justified."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

"Doth Virtue in thy bosom brighter glow, / Or from a Spring more pure doth Action flow? / Is not thy Soul bound with those very chains / Which shackle us, or is that SELF, which reigns / O'er Kings and Beggars, which in all we see / Most strong and sov'reign, only weak in Thee?"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

"Quit then, in prudence quit, that idle train / Of toys, which have so long abus'd thy brain, / And captive led thy pow'rs; with boundless will / Let SELF maintain her state and empire still."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)