Date: 1718

"Affronted Reason stings us with Remorse, / Suggests the Danger and obstructs our Course."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"Repeated Prostitutions conquer Shame, / Assure the Face, and struggling Reason tame."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"Should you the Reins to guilty Passions give, / And to suppress reluctant Conscience strive, / You must maintain a long uncertain Field, / By Turns prevail, by Turns inglorious yield."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1718

"That dreadful Worm may long enchanted lie, / And roll'd in Volumes sleep, but cannot die; / Rousing at Times, indignant 'twill exert / Immortal Rage, and sting you to the Heart."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1722

"When religious passions, namely, love, desire, hope and delight are exalted in the highest degree, and agitate the soul with the greatest vehemence, while reason presides as sovereign, holds the reins, and directs all their motions; this is so far from being a wild and extravagant temper of mind...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: March 13, 1727

"Must these like empty shadows pass, / Or forms reflected from a glass? / Or mere chimeras in the mind, / That fly, and leave no marks behind?"

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1727

"Some, with a dry and barren Brain, / Poor Rogues! like costive Lap-Dogs strain; / While others with a Flux of Wit, / The Reader and their Friends besh**t."

— Somervile, William (1675-1742)

Date: 1727

"To me be Nature's volume broad display'd; / And to peruse its all instructing page, / Or, haply catching inspiration thence, / Some easy passage, raptured, to translate, / My sole delight; as through the falling glooms / Pensive I stray, or with the rising dawn / On Fancy's eagle-wing excursive ...

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1728

"But thro' the Heart / Should Jealousy it's Venom once diffuse, / 'Tis then delightful Misery no more, / But Agony unmixt, incessant Rage, / Corroding every Thought, and blasting all / The Paradise of Love."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1730

"Whate'er we see, whate'er we feel, / Does all the God reveal, / Confirms the Grand Mistake / Of Those, whose Eagle-Thoughts would make / His Seat so wondrous high, / Beyond the Limits of the Sky, /Out beyond the World's wide Sphear, /And fix his Habitation there."

— Woodward, George (b. 1708?)