Date: 1704

"As thro' the Artist's intervening Glass, / Our Eye observes the distant Planets pass; / A little we discover; but allow, / That more remains unseen, than Art can show: / So whilst our Mind it's Knowledge wou'd improve; / (It's feeble Eye intent on Things above) / High as We may, We lift our Rea...

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1712

"Our Intellectual, like the Body's Eye, / Whilst in the Womb, no Object can descry; / Yet is dispos'd to entertain the Light, / And judge of Things when offer'd to the Sight."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1728

"Ye Fairy Prospects then, / Ye Beds of Roses, and ye Bowers of Joy, / Farewell! Ye Gleamings of departing Peace, / Shine out your last! The yellow-tinging Plague / Internal Vision taints, and in a Night / Of livid Gloom Imagination wraps."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1742

"Warnings point out our danger; gnomons, time: / As these are useless when the sun is set; / So those, but when more glorious Reason shines. / Reason should judge in all; in Reason's eye, / That sedentary shadow travels hard."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"Through chinks, styled organs, dim Life peeps at light; / Death bursts the' involving cloud, and all is day; / All eye, all ear, the disembodied power."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"Night is fair Virtue's immemorial friend; / The conscious Moon, through every distant age,/ Has held a lamp to Wisdom, and let fall / On Contemplation's eye her purging ray."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1743

"I'll range the plenteous intellectual field; / And gather every thought of sovereign power, / To chase the moral maladies of man; / Thoughts which may bear transplanting to the skies, / Though natives of this coarse penurious soil; / Nor wholly wither there, where seraphs sing, / Refined, exalte...

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"But beyond / This energy of truth, whose dictates bind / Assenting reason, the benignant sire, / To deck the honour'd paths of just and good, / Has added bright imagination's rays."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1758

"Let inward beauty charm the mental sight; / Let godlike Reason, beaming bright, / Chase far away each gloomy shade, / Till VIRTUE's heav'nly form display'd / Alone shall captivate my soul, / And her divinest love possess me whole!"

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

Date: 1759

"Beware of Self-deceit, that wily cheat, / Which blinds bright Intellect with vain Conceit; / Conceit sees Nothing in its real Light, / All Things alike delude its cheated Sight."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)