Date: 1651

"Now, treacherous Boy, thou hast me sure, / Playing the Wanton with my Heart, / As foolish Children that a Bird have got, / Slacken the Thread, but not unty the knot."

— Sherburne, Sir Edward (bap. 1616, d. 1702)

Date: w. 1652, 1836

"Amongst all those passions which ride men's souls none so jade and tire them out as envy and jealousy; theire journey is longer than any of the rest, they bate seldomer, and commonly ride double, for sure a man cannot bee jealous of his Mistrisse without at the same time envious of his rivall."

— Temple, Sir William (1628-1699)

Date: 1653

"A thought for Breeding would a Travellour be, / The several Countries in the Brain to see; / Spurr'd with Desires he was, Booted with Hope, / His Cap Curios'ty, Patience was his Cloak: / Thus Suited, strait a Horse he did provide, / And Strong Imagination got to Ride; / Which Sadled with Ambitio...

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1660, 1676

"For a scrupulous conscience does not take away the proper determination of the understanding; but it is like a Woman handling of a Frog or a Chicken, which, all their friends tell them, can do them no hurt, and they are convinced in reason that they cannot, they believe it and know it ;...

— Taylor, Jeremy (bap. 1613, 1667)

Date: 1661

"But that, whose Sound, in the Pelîack Cave, / A Bridle to the Minds of Heroes gave, / And great Achilles Thoughts, the Centaure lov'd, / And when, upon the Strings, his Finger mov'd, / Hell's, or the Ocean's Fury 'twould allay."

— Ross, Thomas (bap. 1620, d. 1675)

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: 1666

"The composition of all poems is or ought to be of wit, and wit in the poet, or wit writing (if you will give me leave to use a school distinction), is no other than the faculty of imagination in the writer, which, like a nimble spaniel, beats over and ranges through the field of memory, till it ...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

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: 1660, 1668

"Have you not seen an early-rising Lark / Spring from her Turf, making the Sun her mark, / Shooting her self aloft, yet higher, higher, / Till she had sung her self into Heaven's Quire? / Thus would he rise in Pray'r, and in a trice / His Soul become a Bird of Paradise."

— Wild, Robert (1615/16-1679)