Date: 1603

"This is the very coinage of your brain."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1664

"[B]ut when the difficulty of artful rhyming is interposed, where the poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must contrive that sense into such words, that the rhyme, shall naturally follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure to the judgment to come in; which seei...

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1669, 1694

"I say this is a Spanker Madrigal, and newly minted in my Brain."

— Boyle, Roger, 1st Earl of Orrery (1621-1679)

Date: 1675

"Our Poet hope's you'll not expect to day, / T'have all his down-right thoughts drest up so gay, / If his Coyn chinks too much, you'll doubt allay."

— Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691)

Date: 1677

"I have a Mint in my Brain, and I'l coin so much for you both presently."

— Ravenscroft, Edward (c.1650- c.1700)

Date: 1696

"Take, take me all: enquire into my heart, / (You know the way to every secret there) / My Heart, the sacred treasury of Love: / And if, in absence, I have mis-employ'd / A Mite from the rich store: if I have spent / A Wish, a Sigh, but what I sent to you: / May I be curst to wish, and sigh in va...

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1697

"Her Mony may raise many a false pretended Passion, and young Women seldom want a little hardned Vanity to stamp it into Currant Love."

— Cibber, Colley (1671-1757)

Date: 1700

"I feel my Soul rise with my Pocket."

— Burnaby, William (1673-1706)

Date: 1700

"He speaks, as my own Heart had Coin'd the Words."

— Pix, Mary (c.1666-1720)

Date: 1701

"Conceit, like Wind, has seiz'd the empty Head, and Men convulsively strive to utter what they want a Fund of Brains to yeild."

— Baker, Thomas (b. 1680-1)