Date: 1762-3

"O bow, bow all at Fancy's throne, / Whose power could make so vile an elf / With patience bear that thing himself."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"[T]he five senses in alliance [may] / To Reason hurl a proud defiance, / And, though oft conquer'd, yet unbroke, / Endeavour to throw off that yoke / Which they a greater slavery hold / Than Jewish bondage was of old"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

The five senses may "Allow [Reason] to retain the name / Of Royalty, and, as in sport, / To hold a mimic formal court, / Permitted (no uncommon thing) / To be a kind of puppet-king, / And suffer'd, by the way of toy, / To hold a globe, but not employ"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"Nay, should the eye, that nicest sense, / Neglect to send intelligence / Unto the brain distinct and clear, / Of all that passes in her sphere; / Should she presumptuous joy receive / Without the understanding's leave, / They deem it rank and daring treason / Against the monarchy of Reason"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"Or, with down-bending eye, seem wrought / Into a labyrinth of thought, / Where Reason wanders still in doubt, / And, once got in, cannot get out,"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762

"Therefore, I have no one notion, / That is not form'd, like the designing / Of the peristaltick motion; / Vermicular; twisting and twining; / Going to work / Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1762, 1781

"Bear back, false Winchester, thy proffer'd Bliss, / Weigh Crowns and Kingdoms with a deed like this, / Far, far too light in Wisdom's eye they seem, / Nor shake the scale, while Reason holds the beam."

— Keate, George (1729-1797)

Date: 1762-3

"Conjecture thus, That mental ignis fatuus, Led his poor brains a weary dance From France to England, hence to France."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"With these grave fops, whose system seems / To give up certainty for dreams / The eye of man is understood / As for no other purpose good / Than as a door, through which, of course, / Their passage crowding objects force; / A downright usher, to admit / New-comers to the court of Wit."

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1762-3

"(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen, / When I say wit, I wisdom mean) / Where, (such the practice of the court, / Which legal precedents support) / Not one idea is allow'd / To pass unquestion'd in the crowd, / But ere it can obtain the grace / Of holding in the brain a place, / Before the chief i...

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)