Date: 1709

"How soft the first ideas prove, / Which wander through our minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"Thus far, our slow Imagination goes: / Wou'd the more skill'd THEANOR his disclose; / Expand the Scene, and open to our Sight / What to his nicer Judgment gives Delight; / Whose soaring Mind do's to Perfections climb, / Nor owns a Relish, but for Things sublime."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"An equal Partner in the vanquish'd Earth, / A Brother, not impos'd upon my Birth, / Too weak a Tye unequal Thoughts to bind, / But by the gen'rous Motions of the Mind."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"How soft the first Ideas prove, / Which wander through our Minds!"

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1713

"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."

— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)

Date: 1723, 1725

"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1736

"As she was one day sitting alone in her Garden, ruminating on the last Words of her Father, and the strict Injunction laid on her concerning the Carcanet, Emotions, to which hitherto she had been a Stranger, began to diffuse themselves throughout her Mind."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1736

"Being left to her Repose, a thousand sad Ideas ran through her troubled Mind, which at length burst out in these Complainings: Are these, said she, my promised Joys at my Return to Ijaveo, to find my Throne in the Possession of another?"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1736

"They stood for some moments gazing at each other at a distance; then bow'd and approach'd, but without speaking; the extraordinary Emotions which hurried thro' their Souls, (as they afterwards confess'd) kept both in a profound Silence."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1753

"We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)