Date: 1588

"My mind to me a kingdom is; / Such perfect joy therein I find / That it excels all other bliss / Which God or nature hath assign'd."

— Dyer, Sir Edward (1543-1607)

Date: 1718

"A thousand little Nerves She sends / Quite to our Toes, and Fingers Ends; / And These in Gratitude again / Return their Spirits to the Brain; / In which their Figure being printed / (As just before, I think, I hinted) / Alma inform'd can try the Case, / As She had seen upon the Place. // Thus, w...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

The mind is like "The Pope [who] prays and sleeps at Rome, / And very seldom stirs from Home: / Yet sending forth his Holy Spies, / And having heard what They advise, / He rules the Church's blest Dominions; / And sets Men's Faith by His Opinions."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1718

"Alma, They strenuously maintain, / Sits Cock-horse on Her Throne, the Brain; / And from that Seat of Thought dispenses / Her Sov'reign Pleasure to the Senses."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1751, 1791

"Some few there are of sordid mould, / Who barter youth and bloom for gold; / Careless with what, or whom they mate, / Their ruling passion's all for state."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"To Fancy's court we strait apply, / And wait the sentence of her eye."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"The passions are a num'rous crowd, / Imperious, positive, and loud: / Curb these licentious sons of strife; / Hence chiefly rise the storms of life: / If they grow mutinous, and rave, / They are thy masters, thou their slave."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1751, 1791

"That Breast, where Honour builds his Throne, / That Breast, which Virtue calls her own."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"The brain's an useless organ grown, / And Reason tumbled from his throne."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)

Date: 1752, 1791

"Know too, the joys of sense controul, / And clog the motions of the soul; / Forbid her pinions to aspire, / Damp and impair her native fire: / And sure as Sense (that tyrant!) reigns, / She holds the empress, Soul, in chains."

— Cotton, Nathaniel, the elder (1705-1788)