Date: 1688

By chance some heart may "thy empire own"

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1689, 1716

"'What Confidence can you in them repose, / 'Who e're they serve you, all their Value lose? / 'Who once enslave their Conscience to their Lust, / 'Have lost their Reins, and can no more be Just."

— Montagu, Charles, 1st Earl of Halifax (1661-1715)

Date: 1692

A "soft Enchantress of the mind" may have to resign the empire of her lover's heart

— Norris, John (1657-1712)

Date: 1693

"Needless was written law, where none opprest; / The law of man was written in his breast."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1693

"When Reason with her Robes ascends the Throne, / And wisely all my scatter'd Thoughts calls home, / The Messenger is so divine, / Unto her Laws I must resign."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

"For should I let these Thoughts but rove / They'd fix upon Tyrannick Love."

— Hawkshaw, Benjamin (1671/2-1738)

Date: 1693

"Who can describe the Pleasures, which attend A fair kind She, a Bottle, and a Friend? / How they divide the Empire of our Souls, / While each with grateful Tyranny controuls"

— Ames, Richard (bap. 1664?, d. 1692)

Date: 1693

"Reason you plead, if you it seems t'acquit, / But if condemn'd, its Vote you won't admit. / But still, if private Reason you pretend / Must be the Judge, Disputes will never end."

— Wesley, Samuel, The Elder (bap. 1662, d. 1735)

Date: 1693

"But if thy Passions lord it in thy Breast, / Art thou not still a Slave, and still opprest."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1694, 1708

"But wretched thou, whoe'er my rival art, / That fondly boasts an empire o'er her heart."

— Yalden, Thomas (1670-1736)