Date: 1709, 1810
"Here in a green and shady grove, / Streams of pleasure mix with love: / There beneath the smiling skies / Hills of contemplation rise."
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1709, 1810
"Nothing can describe the soul: / 'Tis a region half unknown, / That has treasures of its own. / More remote from public view / Than the bowels of Peru; / Broader 'tis, and brighter far, / Than the golden Indies are; / Ships that trace the wat'ry stage / Cannot coast it in an age; / Harts, or hor...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
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: 1710, 1714
"This indeed is but too certain; That as long as we enjoy a Mind; as long as we have Appetites and Sense, the Fancys of all kinds will be hard at work; and whether we are in company, or alone, they must range still, and be active. They must have their Field. The Question is, Whether they shall ha...
preview | full record— Cooper, Anthony Ashley, third earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713)
Date: w. c. 1709, 1711
"While from the bounded level of our mind, / Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind, / But more advanc'd, behold with strange surprize / New distant scenes of endless science rise!"
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: Monday, June 18, 1711
"The latter [the fool and his passions] is like the Owner of a barren Country that fills his Eye with the Prospect of naked Hills and Plains, which produce nothing either profitable or ornamental; the other [the wise man and his ideas] beholds a beautiful and spacious Landskip divided into deligh...
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Date: 1711
"The scorcht and pathless Desarts of the Brain, / Want proper Caves and Cells to entertain / A Crowd of airy Forms and long Ideal Train."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: 1711
"Fierce is their [natives of hot climates] Rage, and all the Savage Beast / Reigns in their Soul, and haunts their desart Breast; / Where Hate, Revenge, and Jealousy are bred, / And livid Envy hides her spleenful Head."
preview | full record— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)
Date: w. c. 1709, 1711
"As on the land while here the Ocean gains, / In other parts it leaves wide sandy plains; / Thus in the soul while memory prevails, / The solid pow'r of understanding fails; / Where beams of warm imagination play, / The memory's soft figures melt away."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: Tuesday, January 15, 1712
"We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages."
preview | full record— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)