Date: 1715-1720

"This strong and ruling Faculty was like a powerful Planet, which in the Violence of its Course, drew all things within its Vortex."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1717, 1736

"As into air the purer spirits flow, / And sep'rate from their kindred dregs below; / So flew the soul to its congenial place"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1727

"But each Man's secret Standard in his Mind, / That casting Weight, Pride adds to Emptiness"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1728

"Gold is the Load-stone of the Great, / And vulgar Souls must catch the glitt'ring Bait."

— Pattison, William (1706-1727)

Date: 1729

"Now, while my thought round nature's circle runs / (A bolder journey than the furious sun's) / This chief and satiating good to find / The attracting centre of the human mind"

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1733

"Be wise and pannick fright disdain, / At notions, meteors of the brain"

— Green, Matthew (1696-1737) [pseud. Peter Drake, a Fisherman of Brentford]

Date: 1733-4

"Passions, like Elements, tho' born to fight, / Yet, mix'd and soften'd, in his work unite"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"'Twas thus, if ancient fame the truth unfold, / Two faithful needles, from the informing touch / Of the same parent-stone, together drew / Its mystic virtue, and at first conspir'd / With fatal impulse quivering to the pole."

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"So all things which have life aspire to God, / The sun of being, boundless, unimpair'd, / Center of souls!"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)

Date: 1746

"As the grave sage, who studies to explore, / Some cause phaenonimous--unknown before, / With patience waits--revolving in his mind / The vast events--attending human kind, / Till some propitious star his soul inspires, / And gives the great solution he requires."

— Ruffhead, James