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: 1701

"No man was ever yet so void of sense, / As to debate the right of self-defence; / A principle so grafted in the mind, / With nature born, and does like nature bind."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: May 10, 1704

"As the face of nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding, seated in the brain, must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the invention, and render it fruitful."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Thus far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; and then it will follow that as the face of Nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding seated in the brain must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the inve...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: w. c. 1709, 1711

"Yet if we look more closely, we shall find / Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: / Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light; / The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1715

"The Child may be wrought upon; Nature like some Vegetables, is malleable when taken green and early; but hard and brittle when condens'd by Time and Age; at first it bows and bends to Instruction and Reproof, but afterwards obstinately refuses both."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1715

"From whence also Parents are warned to be very careful, that by their Example or Negligence, those first softned Circumstances of their Childrens Minds are not pass'd over without suitable Applications, to forming them a right, filling them with Learning and Knowledge, and with just Principles, ...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"Pray note, all this was the Fruit of a disturb'd Mind, an impatient Temper, made as it were desperate, by the long Continuance of my Troubles, and the Disappointments I had met in the Wreck I had been on Board of, and where I had been so near the obtaining what I so earnestly long'd for, viz. so...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1733-4

"As fruits ungrateful to the planter's care / On savage stocks inserted learn to bear; / The surest Virtues thus from Passions shoot, / Wild Nature's vigor working at the root."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1734

"Grant but as many sorts of mind, as Moss."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)