Date: 1700

"Better the Mind no Notions had retain'd, / But still a fair Unwritten Blank remain'd; / For now, who Truth from Falshood wou'd discern; / must first disrobe the Mind, and all Unlearn."

— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)

Date: 1705

"In Characters of Malice, Pride, and Fraud, / Stamp'd on his Mind, my Image I applaud."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1705

" In Characters of Malice, Pride, and Fraud, / Stamp'd on his Mind, my Image I applaud."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"The ready Phantomes at her Nod advance, / And form the busie Intellectual Dance: / While her fair Scenes to vary, or supply, / She singles out fit Images, that lye / In Memory's Records, which faithful hold / Objects immense in secret Marks inroll'd, / The sleeping Forms at her Command awake, / ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1714

The Soul returns "Naked from off this Beach and perfect Blank, / To visit the New World."

— Evans, Abel (1679-1737)

Date: February 1738

One may be " In State most desponding, by the Light of a Taper, / With Thoughts dull and dark as my Wax, or my Paper"

— Tickell, Thomas (1685-1740)

Date: 1763

"Explore the dark recesses of the mind, / In the Soul's honest volume read mankind, / And own, in wise and simple, great and small, / The same grand leading Principle in All."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1763

"No--'tis the tale which angry Conscience tells, / When She with more than tragic horror swells / Each circumstance of guilt; when stern, but true, / She brings bad actions forth into review; / And, like the dread hand-writing on the wall, / Bids late Remorse awake at Reason's call, / Arm'd at al...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1774

The mind, "With not a character engrav'd, presents / One universal blank."

— Roberts, William Hayward (d. 1791)

Date: 1792

"[T]he heart's decisions" may be "stamp'd / By Nature's seal, and man's primæval laws"

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)