Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674

"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird / Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid / Tunes her nocturnal note."

— Milton, John (1608-1674)

Date: 1676

"But she has left a pleasing image of herself that wanders in my soul. It must not settle there."

— Etherege, Sir George (1636-1691/2)

Date: 1678

"Then it came burning hot into my mind, whatever he said, and however he flattered, when he got me home to his House, he would sell me for a Slave."

— Bunyan, John (bap. 1628, d. 1688)

Date: 1678

"But Fancy, I think, in Poetry, is like Faith in Religion; it makes far discoveries, and soars above reason, but never clashes, or runs against it. Fancy leaps, and frisks, and away she's gone; whilst reason rattles the chains, and follows after."

— Rymer, Thomas (1641-1713)

Date: 1681

"Here at the fountain's sliding foot, / Or at some fruit tree's mossy root, / Casting the body's vest aside, / My soul into the boughs does glide; / There like a bird it sits and sings, / Then whets, and combs its silver wings; / And, till prepar'd for longer flight, / Waves in its plumes the var...

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1681

"And all to leave, what with his Toyl he won, / To that unfeather'd, two legg'd thing, a Son: / Got, while his Soul did hudled Notions try; / And born a shapeless Lump, like Anarchy."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1684

"My grateful Thoughts so throng to get abroad, / They over-run each other in the crowd: / To you with hasty flight they take their way, / And hardly for the dress of words will stay."

— Oldham, John (1653-1683)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Indeed, whosoever considers the curious Inventions of Wit, the vast Comprehension and subtile Inferences of the Understanding, the wonderful Sagacity and Prospect of Prudence, the noble Endowments and Speculations of the Mind, the quick Transitions and Successions of Thoughts, together with the ...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"For certain 'tis that Memory in Youth is infinitely more ready than in men of riper years, as appears from their different capacitys in learning of a Language; and then for Invention which always builds out of the Store-house of Memory, 'tis then most perfect and various when the Spirits are mos...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"But I like not this Method; for 'tis too tedious, serious and puzling for young Capacities to strugle with: for tho the progress be most natural and convincing, and the deductions of Theorems from one another, though they may ravish the Contemplative, yet it requires a man to have a complex Appr...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)