Date: 1714

"Time presses, and a thousand crowding Thoughts / Break in at once; this Way and that they snatch, / They tear my hurry'd Soul. All claim Attention, / And yet not one is heard."

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1715

I have a Thought--but wherefore said I one, / I have a thousand Thoughts all up in Arms, / Like populous Towns disturb'd at dead of Night, / That mixt in Darkness bustle to and fro, / As if their Business were to make Confusion.

— Rowe, Nicholas (1674-1718)

Date: 1715

"Love is a generous Volunteer; Lust a Mercenary Slave"

— Johnson, Charles (1679?-1748)

Date: January 16, 1717

"Madam, excuse this Absence of Mind; my animal Spirits had deserted the Avenues of my Senses, and retired to the Recesses of the Brain, to contemplate a beautiful Idea. I could not force the vagrant Creatures back again into their Posts, to move those Parts of the Body that express Civility."

— Gay, John (1685-1732); Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1717

"Against my self my rebel Passions arm; / They bound within my Breast to meet this Victor."

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: February 22, 1723

"If a single thought / Were tinctur'd with disloyalty, this hand / Shou'd pierce my heart to drive the rebel out."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: February 22, 1723

Oh!--Ten thousand rebels arm, / Grief, horror, shame, distraction!--they besiege / The poor soul, wav'ring in the fort of life, / And wishing to surrender!"

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: 1724

"[T]he dear, the happy Secret safe lodg'd within my Soul, shou'd take no Air, nor let in the least room for a Conjecture"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1724

"yet the soul, / Like a soft babe, inur'd to foolish fondness, / Is hard to wean from wailing."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: 1724

"My thoughts are furies all!--and turn upon me! / I feel their whips!--They lash me with remorse! / My brain grows hot!--Hell glows in my mad bosom!"

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)