Date: 1691
"If thro the Eye the Vigorous Object darts / Into the Brain these small Aerial Parts; / How are they entertain'd, when Crowds do come? / How do the little narrow Cells make room? / Do all, that to an Object do belong, / Into one Place unmixt with others throng?"
preview | full record— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)
Date: 1695
Active spirits fly "To the round Palace of th' Immortal Soul, / And thro' the Rooms and dark Apartments roll."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1700, 1717
"Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement ...
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700)
Date: 1709, 1810
"Yet the silly wand'ring mind, / Loth to be too much confin'd, / Roves and takes her daily tours, / Coasting round the narrow shores, / Narrow shores of flesh and sense, / Picking shells and pebbles thence: / Or she sits at fancy's door, / Calling shapes and shadows to her, / Foreign visits still...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1712
"The ready Phantomes at her Nod advance, / And form the busie Intellectual Dance: / While her fair Scenes to vary, or supply, / She singles out fit Images, that lye / In Memory's Records, which faithful hold / Objects immense in secret Marks inroll'd, / The sleeping Forms at her Command awake, / ...
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
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."
preview | full record— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)
Date: 1743
"Darkness has more divinity for me: / It strikes thought inward; it drives back the soul / To settle on herself, our point supreme! / There lies our theatre; there sits our judge."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1744, 1772, 1795
"For to the brutes / Perception and the transient boons of sense / Hath fate imparted: but to man alone / Of sublunary beings was it given / Each fleeting impulse on the sensual powers / At leisure to review; with equal eye / To scan the passion of the stricken nerve / Or the vague object strikin...
preview | full record— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)
Date: 1755, 1771
"For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul / Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal; / Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame, / The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame, / Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye / A glance, an image, of a future sky."
preview | full record— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)
Date: January 1, 1779
"There [to Heaven's Regions] when the soul, in search of purer day, / Loos'd from mortality's impris'ning clay / Shall swifter than the forked lightning dart."
preview | full record— Anstey, Christopher (1724-1805)