Date: 1725
"Forgive the harsh Expression, for believe, of all Mankind, I cou'd esteem you as a Friend--but, alas! my Heart wants room to entertain you as a tender Guest; long e're I knew your Merits it was taken up, all the Affections of my Soul are riveted to another--to him I am bound by all the ties of H...
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1727
"For I cannot agree that the Soul is in the Body, as in a Prison; but rather that, like a rich Nobleman, he is pleas'd to inhabit a fine Country Seat or Palace of his own Building, where he resolves to live and enjoy himself, and does so, 'till by the Fate of things his fine Palace being over-tur...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: 1727
"Conscience, indeed, is a frightful Apparition itself, and I make no Question but it oftentimes haunts an oppressing Criminal into Restitution, and is a Ghost to him sleeping or waking: nor is it the least Testimony of an invisible World that there is such a Drummer as that in the Soul, that can ...
preview | full record— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Date: Friday, April 21, 1727
"For though it is generally believed that few Statesmen are much afflicted with this terrible Inmate; yet, upon a careful Inspection of human Nature, I find it to be a vulgar Error; and am fully satisfied that, notwithstanding the outward placid Behaviour and smiling Aspect of t...
preview | full record— Caleb d'Anvers [pseud. for Nicholas Amhurst, Henry, Viscount Bolingbroke, and William Pulteney, Earl of Bath]
Date: 1731
"To which Purpose they have ingeniously contrived and set up an Active Understanding, like a Smith or Carpenter, with his Shop or Forge in the Brain, furnished with all necessary Tools and Instruments for such a Work."
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: 1731
"Where I would only demand of these Philosophers, Whether this their so expert Smith or Architect, the Active Understanding, when he goes about his Work, doth know what he is to do with these Phantasms before-hand, what he is to make of them, and unto what Shape to bring them? I...
preview | full record— Cudworth, Ralph (1617-1688)
Date: June 1, 1732
"Oh! give me way, come all you Furies, come, / Lodge in th'unfurnish'd Chambers of my Heart, / My Heart which never shall be let again / To any Guest but endless Misery, / Never shall have a Bill upon it more."
preview | full record— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)
Date: 1733-4
"Love, hope, and joy, fair pleasure's smiling train, / Hate, fear, and grief, the family of pain, / These mix'd with art, and to due bounds confin'd, / Make, and maintain, the balance of the mind."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)
Date: 1741
"This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it hab...
preview | full record— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)
Date: 1742
"So should all speak: so Reason speaks in all. / From the soft whispers of that god in man, / Why fly to Folly, why to Frenzy fly, / For rescue from the blessing we possess?"
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)