Date: 1704

"Charity, decent, modest, easy, kind, / Softens the high, and rears the abject Mind; / Knows with just Reins, and gentle Hand to guide, / Betwixt vile Shame, and arbitrary Pride."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Tis more to guide, than spur the Muse's steed; / Restrain his fury, than provoke his speed; / The winged courser, like a gen'rous horse, / Shows most true mettle when you check his course."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1716

"Their Conscience is a Worm within, / That gnaws them Night and Day."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1718

"And yet, slap dash, is All again / In every Sinew, Nerve, and Vein. / [the mind] Runs here and there, like Hamlet's Ghost; / While every where She rules the roast."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"As in a Hive's vimineous Dome, / Ten thousand Bees enjoy their Home; / Each does her studious Action vary, / To go and come, to fetch and carry: / Each still renews her little Labor; / Nor justles her assiduous Neighbour."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Your Horace owns, He various writ, / As wild, or sober Maggots bit: / And, where too much the Poet ranted, / The Sage Philosopher recanted."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1719

"It would take up a larger Volume than this whole Work is intended to be, to set down all the Contrivances I hatch'd, or rather brooded upon in my Thought."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"His Words I must confess fir'd my Blood; all my Spirits flew about my Heart, and put me into Disorder enough."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"Those Reflections began to prey upon my Comforts, and lessen the Sweets of my other Enjoyments: They might be said to have gnaw'd a Hole in my Heart before; but now they made a Hole quite thro' it; now they eat into all my pleasant things; made bitter every Sweet, and mix'd my Sighs with every S...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"Conscience draws the Picture of the Crime in Apparition just before him, and the Reflection, not the injur'd Soul, is the Spectre that haunts him: Nor can he need a worse Tormenter in this Life; whether there is a worse hereafter, or no, I do not pretend to determine. This is certainly 'a Worm t...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)