Date: 1651
"'Tis but the Body that blind Fortunes spight / Can chain to Earth; the nobler Soul doth slight / Her servill Bonds, and takes to Heaven her flight."
preview | full record— Sherburne, Sir Edward (bap. 1616, d. 1702)
Date: 1678
"But Fancy, I think, in Poetry, is like Faith in Religion; it makes far discoveries, and soars above reason, but never clashes, or runs against it. Fancy leaps, and frisks, and away she's gone; whilst reason rattles the chains, and follows after."
preview | full record— Rymer, Thomas (1641-1713)
Date: 1691
"Towards the end of which Chapter Evander confesses his Wit has a little run away with him; so ungovernable a thing is towring Fancy, when not hand-cufft by powerful Reason, flying out against Learning, beloved Learning, at so Satyrical a rate as almost makes his heart bleed to read it, when he t...
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
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."
preview | full record— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)
Date: 1762
"Ne’er did thy Voice assume a Master’s Pow’r, / Nor force Assent to what thy Precepts taught; / But bid my independent Spirit soar, / In all the Freedom of unfett’red Thought"
preview | full record— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)