Date: 1691

"Towards the end of which Chapter Evander confesses his Wit has a little run away with him; so ungovernable a thing is towring Fancy, when not hand-cufft by powerful Reason, flying out against Learning, beloved Learning, at so Satyrical a rate as almost makes his heart bleed to read it, when he t...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

Date: 1697

"Amazing Power of Guilt! one great Offence / Benumbs the Mind, and stupifys the Sense, / Binds fast reluctant Conscience with its Charms, / And of its Sting the Worm within disarms."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: w. 1694-1698, 1989

"Wn to my soul thou'st spoken peace / When from its bonds thou wilt my soul release / all my mourning then shall cease."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: 1699

"Our prepossessions and Affections bind / The Soul in Chains and lord it o'er the Mind."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1700

"What's all the noisy Jargon of the Schools, / But idle Nonsense of laborious Fools, / Who fetter Reason with perplexing Rules."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1700

"We seldome use our Liberty aright, / Nor Judge of Things by Universal Light; / Our Prepossessions and Affections bind / The Soul in Chains, and Lord it o're the Mind."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1703

"Ye holy Souls, who from your Bondage free, / Have reach'd th' inmost Mansions of the Skie, / And there, those dazling Glories see, / Which lie / Beyond the utmost Ken of a weak mortal Eye."

— Chudleigh [née Lee], Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710)

Date: 1712

"She [the soul] does her Godlike Liberty secure: / Her Right and high Prerogative maintains, / Impatient of the Yoke, and scorns coercive Chains."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: w. 1702-1713

"Loos'd from ye chains of flesh his freer mind / Rose up to sacred love, / To perfect saint or seraphim refin'd, / Quitting his lump of clay, / As subtle spirits fume away / Loos'd from their earth they upward mount, they flye, / They light, they shine, & blaze along the skye."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)

Date: w. before 1717? (first published 1989)

"But he who servily can wish or grieve / For that which is not in his powr to give / Casts off the firmness wch shoud make him great / the strongest shield we can oppose to fate / letts inclinations grow & thus he weaves / Those very bonds which keep us passions slaves."

— Parnell, Thomas (1679-1718)