Date: 1609

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste"

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1635

"Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, / But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue."

— Donne, John (1572-1631)

Date: 1653

"If flattering Language all the Passions rule, / Then Sense, I feare, will be a meere dull Foole."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1653

"A Poet I am neither borne, nor bred,/ But to a witty Poet married: / Whose Braine is Fresh, and Pleasant, as the Spring, / Where Fancies grow, and where the Muses sing."

— Cavendish, Margaret (1623-1673)

Date: 1658

In "Man's head ... madam Reason is enthron'd, her grace / Reignes like an Empress in the highest place."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"My lady Will, resideth in the brain; / The Judgment there, there doth Minerva raigne"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)