Date: 1727

"Inhaling spirit; from the unfetter'd mind, / By thee sublimed, down to the daily race, / The mixing myriads of thy setting beam."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"Snatch'd by these wonders to that world where thought / Unfetter'd ranges, Fancy's magic hand / Led me anew o'er all the solemn scene, / Still in the mind's pure eye more solemn dress'd."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"The Persian fetters, that inthrall'd the mind, / Were turn'd to formal and apparent chains."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"Britons! be firm!--nor let corruption sly / Twine round your heart indissoluble chains!"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1735-6

"The steel of Brutus burst the grosser bonds / By Cæsar cast o'er Rome; but still remain'd / The soft enchanting fetters of the mind, / And other Cæsars rose."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1754

"What is the juxta-position of ideas? what is that chain which connects, by intermediate ideas that are the links of it, ideas that are remote, but figurative stile?"

— St John, Henry, styled first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751)

Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875

"Not yet contented with his boundless sway, / Which all perforce must outwardly obey, / He thought to throw his chain upon the mind; / Nor would he leave conjecture unconfined."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)