Date: 1760

"What's a meditation, but a collection of the reveries of a mind; and what is of a more moving nature than the mind--so far from thinking in train, it flies from one subject to another, with a rapidity inexpressible--from meditating upon the planetary system, it can with ease deviate into a medit...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) [attrib.]

Date: 1760

"Digressions too take place in philosophy; and oft we find the mind of a philosopher turns aside in a curve, flies off in a tangent, or springs up in a spiral line."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768) [attrib.]

Date: 1773

"Seiz'd in thought / On fancy's wild and roving wing I sail, / From the green borders of the peopled earth, / And the pale moon, her duteous fair attendant; / From solitary Mars; from the vast orb / Of Jupiter, whose huge gigantic bulk / Dances in ether like the lightest leaf; / To the dim verge,...

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1773

"But now my soul unus'd to stretch her powers / In flight so daring, drops her weary wing, / And seeks again the known accustom'd spot, / Drest up with sun, and shade, and lawns, and streams, / A mansion fair and spacious for its guest, / And full replete with wonders."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)