Date: 1704

"You boast, indeed, of being obliged to no other Creature, but of drawing, and spinning out all from your self; That is to say, if we may judge of the Liquor in the Vessel by what issues out, You possess a good plentiful Store of Dirt and Poison in your Breast; And, tho' I would by no means, less...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Thrice have I forced my imagination to take the tour of my invention, and thrice it has returned empty, the latter having been wholly drained by the following treatise."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Tutors, like Virtuoso's, oft inclin'd / By strange transfusion to improve the mind, / Draw off the sense we have, to pour in new; / Which yet with all their skill, they ne'er could do."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"For as in Bodies, thus in Souls, we find / What wants in Blood and Spirits, swell'd with Wind: / Pride, where Wit fails, steps in to our Defence, / And fills up all the mighty Void of Sense!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1714 [1712, 1717]

"Then gay Ideas crowd the vacant Brain, / While Peers and Dukes, and all their sweeping Train, / And Garters, Stars, and Coronets appear, / And in soft sounds, Your Grace salutes their Ear."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)