Date: 1723

"Tho' now, 'tis true, the strong Temptation's Force / Suspends Religion, and diverts its Course; / Yet still the Pow'r that chiefly rules your Soul, / And will I trust your future Life controul, / Is heav'nly Virtue, which, tho' now opprest / It sleeps a while unactive in your Breast, / Will, rou...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1735

"As if thy thrifty Soul foreknew, / Like a wise Envoy, Heav'n's Intent / Soon to recall whom it had sent, / And all its Task resolv'd at once to do."

— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)

Date: 1745

"Drink early then, my Friend, at Reason's Bowl, / And fill with wholesome Draughts thy youthful Soul. / If Wine or Gall the Recent Vessel stains, / Each Scent alike the faithful Cask retains."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: 1748

Thought is "The lover's heaven, or his hell."

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1782

"Man's heart had been impenetrably seal'd / Like theirs that cleave the flood or graze the field, / Had not his Maker's all-bestowing hand / Given him a soul"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"The shifts and turns, / The expedients and inventions multiform / To which the mind resorts, in chase of terms / Though apt, yet coy, and difficult to win,-- / To arrest the fleeting images that fill / The mirror of the mind, and hold them fast, / And force them sit, till he has pencil'd off / ...

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"He that attends to his interior self, [...] Has business; feels himself engaged to achieve / No unimportant, though a silent task."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

A mind may be like "clear amber, conden'd by stagnation," it may exhibit "the dirt it imbib'd in formation"

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"The Muses, tho' coy to the rest of mankind, / Ran jocund to light the vast caves of [Shakespeare's] mind"

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)