Date: Tuesday, October 22, 1706

"Sometimes it is acted by the evil Spirit of general Vogue, and like a meer Possession 'tis hurry'd out of all manner of common Measures; to day it obeys the Course of things and submits to Causes and Consequences; to morrow it suffers Violence from the Storms and Vapours of Human Fancy, operated...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1709 [1708]

"Beautiful Looks are rul'd by fickle Minds; / And Summer Seas are turn'd by sudden Winds"

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"For as in Bodies, thus in Souls, we find / What wants in Blood and Spirits, swell'd with Wind: / Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our Defence, / And fills up all the mighty Void of Sense!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"If once right Reason drives that Cloud away, / Truth breaks upon us with resistless Day."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1713

"What an April weather in the mind!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1715-1720

"His Country's Cares lay rowling in his Breast. / As when by Light'nings Jove 's Ætherial Pow'r / Foretells the ratling Hail, or weighty Show'r, / Or sends soft Snows to whiten all the Shore, / Or bids the brazen Throat of War to roar; / By fits one Flash succeeds, as one expire...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717

"Jove with a nod may bid the world to rest, / But Serenissa must becalm her breast."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1719

"In the midst of the greatest Composures of my Mind, this would break out upon me like a Storm, and make me wring my Hands, and weep like a Child."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"I was not so much surpriz'd with the Lightning, as I was with a Thought which darted into my Mind as swift as the Lightning it self: O my Powder!"

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1727

"The Soul of the Murther'd Person seeks no Revenge; all that Part is swallowed up in the Wonders of the eternal State, and Vengeance entirely resign'd to him to whom it belongs; but the Soul of the Murtherer is like the Ocean in a Tempest, he is in continual Motion, restless and raging; and the G...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)