Date: 1707

"How sad our State by Nature is! / Our Sin how deep it stains! / And Satan binds our captive Minds / Fast in his slavish Chains."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1718

"Should you presumptuous, quit your safer Ground, / And seek the utmost Lines, which Vertue bound, / And on the Frontier to engage the Foe, With Reason 's weak collected Forces go, / You'll soon those nice, ill-guarded Limits pass, / Throw down your Arms, and fond her Feet embrace, / In her soft ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1720

"You'll weep, I know you will; no Iron Chains / Confine thy Heart, thy Breast no Oak retains."

— Dart, John (d. 1730); Tibullus (c. 54-19 B.C.)

Date: 1724

"As a Stone in a Wall, fastened with Mortar, compressed by surrounding Stones, and involved in a Million of other Attractions, cannot fall to the Earth, nor sensibly exert its natural Gravity, no, not so much as to discover there is such a Principle in it; just so, the intelligent Soul, in this h...

— Cheyne, George (1671-1743)

Date: September 17, 1726

"This Train of Images continually revolv'd in our young Parson's Brain; and to preserve them from being jostled out by any intruding Foreigners, who might dispossess the Original Orthodox Inhabitants, the first Link of the Chain was rivetted by Pride, and the two last closed up by those two insep...

— Arbuckle, James (d. 1742)

Date: 1729

"Now in order to restore the Fibres of the Brain under the Melancholy Madness, and recover the Mind from those most gloomy, dejecting Circumstances, to which it is chain'd during the Force of this Disease, we must endeavour to bring their Machinulae into closer Contacts with each other; th...

— Robinson, Nicholas (c.1697–1775)

Date: 1733-5

"[Love's] Pleasures have so many Pains, / And leave such Stings behind, / That I'm resolv'd to quit the Chains, / And free my captive Mind."

— Bowden, Samuel (fl. 1733-1761)

Date: 1734

"Hail, holy souls, no more confin'd / To limbs and bones that clog the mind; / Ye have escap'd the snares, and left the chains behind."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1741

"Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation, / Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation: / ''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain, / Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.'"

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1741

"'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure, / And will rid me at last of your insolent power: / Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish, / And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish: / And while in your dust your dull ruins decay, / I'll snap off my cha...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)