Date: 1700, 1702

"A Beam of Hope, / Strikes thro' my Soul, like the first Infant Light, / That glanc'd upon the Chaos."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1700, 1702

"And all fires those that lighted up my Soul / Glory and bright Ambition languish now, / And leave me dark and gloomy as the Grave."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1703, 1718

"Darkness, like that in Central Caves beneath, / Like that, which spreads the lonesome Walks of Death, / Where never Ray one Inroad made, / The Rebels Mind did swift invade."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1703

"The light of the Sun is not more grateful to our outward sense, than the light of truth is to the soul."

— Tillotson, John (1630-1694)

Date: 1703

Souls are "Like Tapers hid in Urns they shine. / The Life of Sense and Growth we only see, / Which Beasts enjoy as well as we."

— Chudleigh [née Lee], Mary, Lady Chudleigh (bap. 1656, d. 1710)

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: 1704

"The first ingredient toward the art of canting, is, a competent share of inward light; that is to say, a large memory plentifully fraught with theological polysyllables, and mysterious texts from holy writ, applied and digested by those methods and mechanical operations already related:...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"Remark your commonest pretender to a light within, how dark, and dirty, and gloomy he is without; as lanterns which, the more light they bear in their bodies, cast out so much the more soot and smoke and fuliginous matter to adhere to the sides."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1704

"Those Ancient Men of Genius who rifled Nature by the Torch-Light of Reason even to her very Nudities, have been run a-ground in this unknown Channel; the Wind has blown out the Candle of Reason, and left them all in the Dark."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Whether a tincture of malice in our natures makes us fond of furnishing every bright idea with its reverse, or whether reason, reflecting upon the sum of things, can, like the sun, serve only to enlighten one half of the globe, leaving the other half by necessity under shade and darkness, or whe...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)