Date: January 16, 1717

"Madam, excuse this Absence of Mind; my animal Spirits had deserted the Avenues of my Senses, and retired to the Recesses of the Brain, to contemplate a beautiful Idea. I could not force the vagrant Creatures back again into their Posts, to move those Parts of the Body that express Civility."

— Gay, John (1685-1732); Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1718

"My simple System shall suppose, / That Alma enters at the Toes; / That then She mounts by just Degrees / Up to the Ancles, Legs, and Knees: / Next, as the Sap of Life does rise, / She lends her Vigor to the Thighs: / And, all these under-Regions past,/ She nestles somewhere near the Waste."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1719

"My soul is like a wilderness, / Where beasts of midnight howl; / There the sad raven finds her place, / And there the screaming owl."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1722

"And here indeed I have been often put upon a serious Consideration, how such a Heap of Pultis like Matter, a kind of Quag or Bog, and which as Sydenham observes, carries so little Analogy in its Form, and appears seemingly so unlikely to manage an Office of Intelligence, should yet be qualified ...

— Turner, Daniel (1667-1741)

Date: 1723

"Thou see'st from whence her Colours Fancy takes, / Of what Materials she her Pencil makes / By which she paints her Scenes with such Applause, / And in the Brain ten thousand Landskips draws."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1723

"Thou know'st the downy Chains that softly bind / Our slumb'ring Sense, when waiting Objects find / No Avenue left open to the Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1724

"That fiery thought / Glows in my breast; and as I weigh my wrongs, / I swell like Ætna, when her sulph'rous rage / Bursts o'er the earth, and rolls in floods of fire."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1724

"When all at once / A thousand anxious Thoughts that slept by Day, / Swarm'd in my Brain, 'till it resembled Hell, / Hot, dark and hot: my sick Imagination, / Assisted by the Shades of Night, would give / A gloomy turn to each Idea there."

— Jeffreys, George (1678-1755)

Date: 1724

"For Nature by fix'd Laws has wisely join'd / The bright Ideas of the conscious Mind / To Motions of the liquid spirit'ous Train, / Thro' previous Traces of the humid Brain; / These, when the Soul by drowsy Sleep oppress'd / Into her private Cell retires to Rest, / Thro' beaten Paths their wand'r...

— Needler, Henry (1690-1718); Duncombe, William (1690-1769)

Date: 1724, 1725

"[Love] that Tyrant Passion lords it o'er the Mind, fills every Faculty, and leaves no room for any other Thought--drives Consideration far away--overturns Reflection-- and permits no Image but itself to dwell in Fancy's Region"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)