Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed / Sown with contrition in his heart, than those / Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees / Paradise could have produced."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"So from the root / Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves / More aerie, last the bright consummate floure / Spirits odorous breathes: flours and thir fruit / Mans nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd / To vital Spirits aspire, to animal, / To intellectual, give both life and s...

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"The brain that sows not corn plants thistles."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"Corn is cleansed with the wind, and the soul with chastning."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1678

"I believe that what both you, and all the rest of you say about that matter, is but the fruit of distracted braines."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1682

"There are sown the Seeds of Divine Things in Mortal Bodies. If the Mind be well Cultivated, the Fruit answers the Original; and, if not, all runs into Weeds."

— L'Estrange, Sir Roger (1616-1704)

Date: 1684

"Nor were these Fruits in a rough Soil bestown / As Gemms are thick'st in rugged Quarries sown."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"How doth Reason exert it self by little and little, what Helps and Arts are there us'd to make the Flower open and shew it self to the World?"

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: w. 1687 [published 1907]

"Yet potent Nature frankly has bestow'd / Such various gifts amongst the mingl'd Crowd, */ That I believe, the dullest of the kind, / Wou'd he but Husband and Manure his Mind,* / Might find some Exce'llence there, which well-improv'd / At home might make him Pleas'd, in public Lov'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1687

"At this enrag'd, the injur'd Deity / Chose out the best of his Artillery, / And in a blooming Virgin's Dove-like Eyes / He planted his Victorious Batteries; / (Phillis her Name, the best of Woman-kind, / Could Love have gain'd the Empire of her Mind) / These shot so furiously against my Heart, /...

— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)