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: 1719

"The Absence of an old Mistress makes room for a new one--Therefore I have blotted her from my Fancy, like a Painter that strikes one form out of his Cloth, to lay in another."

— Savage, Richard (1697/8-1743)

Date: April 18, 1721

"Oh, what a Pain to think! when every Thought, / Perplexing Thought in Intricacies runs, / And Reason knits th'inextricable Toil / In which her self is taken. I am lost, / Poor Insect that I am, I am involv'd, / And bury'd in the Web my self have wrought."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: April 18, 1721

"O the Medley / Of Right and Wrong! the Chaos in my Brain! / He should, and should not dye-- / You should Obey, / And not Obey.--It is a Day of Darkness, / Of Contradictions, and of many Deaths."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: April 18, 1721

"I told her, from your Childhood you was wont / On any great Surprize, but chiefly then / When cause of Sorrow bore it Company, / To have your Passion shake the Seat of Reason, / A momentary Ill, which soon blew o'er."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1722

"The disappointed advocate, finding she had so unexpected a support, on cooler thoughts descended to a composition, which I, without her knowledge, secretly discharged."

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1722

"You say this because I wrung you to the heart when I touched your guilty conscience about Judy"

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1722

"Have I then at last a father's sanction on my love? His bounteous hand to give and make my heart a present worthy of Bevil's generosity?"

— Steele, Sir Richard (1672-1729)

Date: 1722

"Vertues, and Vices, are to Realms confin'd: / And, Climates give a Tincture to the Mind."

— Philips, Ambrose (1674-1749)

Date: 1723, 1739-40

"Let's join our Hearts then, and seal them with a Kiss"

— Bellamy, Daniel, the Elder (b. 1687)