Date: 1688

"Here's Cavities, says one; and here, says he, / Is th' Seat of Fancy, Judgment, Memory: / Here, says another, is the fertile Womb, / From whence the Spirits Animal do come, / Which are mysteriously ingender'd here, / Of Spirits from Arterious Blood and Air: / Here, said a third, Life made her fi...

— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Tutors, like Virtuoso's, oft inclin'd / By strange transfusion to improve the mind, / Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new; / Which yet with all their skill, they ne'er could do."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

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: 1714 [1712, 1717]

"Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant Brain, / While Peers and Dukes, and all their sweeping Train, / And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear, / And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their Ear."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1737, 1743

"It is with narrow-soul'd People as with narrow-neck'd Bottles: The less they have in them the more noise they make in pouring it out."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1975

"In the preceding months he had prepared himself with meticulous care, filling his mind with distilled knowledge, drop by drop, until, on the eve of the first paper (Old English Set Texts) it was almost brimming over."

— Lodge, David (b. 1935)

Date: 1975

"Each morning for the next ten days he bore his precious vessel to the examination halls and poured a measured quantity of the contents on to the pages of ruled quarto. Day by day the level fell, until on the tenth day the vessel was empty, the cup was drained, the cupboard was bare"

— Lodge, David (b. 1935)

Date: 1975

"In the years that followed he set about replenishing his mind, but it was never quite the same. The sense of purpose was lacking--there was no great Reckoning against which he could hoard his knowledge, so that it tended to leak away as fast as he acquired it."

— Lodge, David (b. 1935)