Date: 1700, 1702

"What is the Soul of Man but Light, / Drawn down from thy transcendant height? / What but an Intellectual Beam? / A Spark of thy immortal Flame?"

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

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)