Date: 1688
"Here's Cavities, says one; and here, says he, / Is th' Seat of Fancy, Judgment, Memory: / Here, says another, is the fertile Womb, / From whence the Spirits Animal do come, / Which are mysteriously ingender'd here, / Of Spirits from Arterious Blood and Air: / Here, said a third, Life made her fi...
preview | full record— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)
Date: 1691
"If Old and New i'th Brain together crowd, / How is it Room and Peace is them allow'd? /How do they and their Equipages come? /For if Material, they must take up room. / And tract of Time would hoard up such a Crop, / The crowded Atoms would the Channels stop, / And choke the Passages of Vision up."
preview | full record— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)
Date: 1691
"For wheresoe'r We look's an unknown Coast, / Our Mind perplex'd in endless Storms is tost; / And in th' Abyss all Wit and Learning lost."
preview | full record— Heyrick, Thomas (bap. 1649. d. 1694)
Date: 1700
"Rack'd with my griefs, my Anxious Soul survives, / Dash'd like a ship which with the Billows drives."
preview | full record— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)
Date: 1700
The "Trading Mind" must voyage over an Ocean, but "Resisting Rocks oppose th' Inquiring Soul, / And adverse Waves retard it as they Rowl."
preview | full record— Pomfret, John (1667-1702)
Date: 1700
"Love Fights--Love Conquers still-- / And my own Heart is his Triumphant Car."
preview | full record— Hopkins, John (b. 1675)
Date: 1709
Some will tell us "What all our Senseless Dreams import, / Drest in a Thousand various Shapes, / Centaures, Chimæras, Bulls and Apes, / When Fancy is dispos'd her Airyship to Sport."
preview | full record— Gould, Robert (b. 1660?, d. in or before 1709)
Date: 1712, 1796
"Unsteady nature, varying like the wind, / Hurries to each extreme th'unstable mind; / At sea becalm'd, we wish some brisker gales / Would on us rise, and fill our limber sails: / We have our wish; and straight our skiff is toss'd / So high, we are in danger to be lost."
preview | full record— Ellwood, Thomas (1639-1713)
Date: 1715
"The Poet is in the right to say, that the Mind is a Part of Man: for it is, indeed, the informing, but not an assisting Part, as a Mariner in a Ship, and a Coachman in his Box, as the Academicks believ'd."
preview | full record— Lucretius Carus, Titus (94 B.C.- ca. 49 B.C.); Creech, Thomas (1659-1700)
Date: 1715-1720
"'Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover'd immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity."
preview | full record— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)