Date: 1735

"God gave us Reason ... A faithful guide to comfort and to save, / Till the mind floats, like Peter on the wave."

— Harte, Walter (1708/9-1774)

Date: 1736

"As she was one day sitting alone in her Garden, ruminating on the last Words of her Father, and the strict Injunction laid on her concerning the Carcanet, Emotions, to which hitherto she had been a Stranger, began to diffuse themselves throughout her Mind."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1737

""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1742

"At home a stranger, / Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast, / And wondering at her own."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Where roll my thoughts / To rest from wonders? Other wonders rise; / And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught; / Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross, / Rush on her in a throng, and close her round, / The prisoner of amaze!"

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: w. May, 1756; 1761

"For these, if I forget my patron's praise, / While bright ideas dance upon my mind, / Ne'er may these eyes behold auspicious days, / May friends prove faithless, and the Muse unkind."

— Fawkes, Francis (1720-1777)

Date: November, 1769?

"And give me back my heart again, / And oh! instruct the roving guest, / No more to wander from my breast."

— Shaw, Cuthbert (1738-1771)

Date: 1775

"With thee among the haunted groves / The lovely sorc'ress Fancy roves, / O let me find her here!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1785

"[W]hen the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable"

— Paley, William (1743-1805)