Date: November 1672, 1673

"Ay, ay, when the love is once come so far, that Spiritual Mind will never leave pulling, and pulling, till it has drawn the beastly body after it."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: November 4, 1672, 1673

"Thou Live, and yet speak against Drinking, the very thing that distinguishes the Life of Man from that of a Beast! Why, 'tis the onely Spur of Wit and Reason; I have heard more new thoughts in Drinking three hours, then the best Modern Play can furnish you with; Therefore if thou would'st Live, ...

— Payne, Henry [alias Henry Nevill] (d. 1705?)

Date: March 12, 1673

"I'le keep my Soul free as the Bird that flyes i'th Aire, / I'le ne'r love one, till I of all besides Despair."

— Ravenscroft, Edward (c.1650- c.1700)

Date: 1674, 1686

"For Fancy's like a rough, but ready Horse, / Whose mouth is govern'd more by skill than force; / Wherein (my Friend) you do a Maistry own, / If not particular to you alone; /Yet such at least as to all eyes declares /Your Pegasus the best performs his Ayres."

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Date: 1676

"Sorrow and remorse gnaw [the] soul"

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

Date: 1677

"Or else unto those Birds (aspiring) rare, / The Soul contemplative I may compare, / Of whom King David worthily attests, / That by the Holy Altar build their Nests: / So Meditation's said in holy Story, / To build her Nest about the Throne of Glory."

— Speed, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. 1679?)

Date: 1678

"A Weak mind complains before it is overtaken with evil, and as Birds are affrighted with the noise of the Sling, so the infirm soul anticipates its troubles by its own fearful apprehensions, and falls under them before they are yet arrived."

— Wanley, Nathaniel (1634-1680)

Date: 1670, rev. 1678

"To chew the cud upon a thing ... To consider of a thing, to revolve it in one's mind: to ruminate, which is the name of this action, is used in the same sense both in Latin and English."

— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627-1705)

Date: 1678

"I left off to watch, and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my lusts; I sinned against the light of the Word, and the goodness of God."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1678

"This conceit would loosen the reines of our lust, and tollerate us to live as we list."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)