Date: 1687
"This Heart of mine, now wreck'd upon despair, / Was once as free and careless as the Air; / In th' early Morning of my tender years, / E're I was sensible of Hopes and Fears, / It floated in a Sea of Mirth and Ease, / And thought the World was only made to please; / No adverse Wind had ever stop...
preview | full record— Cutts, John, Baron Cutts of Gowran (1660/1-1707)
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: 1690
"O there's the Rock, on which my Reason splits: / Wou'd that were all!"
preview | full record— Dryden, John (1631-1700); [Plautus, Molière]
Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706
Surveying the "Powers of our own Minds" is like fathoming "the depths of the Ocean": "'Tis of great use to the Sailor to know the length of his Line, though he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the Ocean. 'Tis well he knows, that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such Places as are ...
preview | full record— Locke, John (1632-1704)
Date: 1691
"Thirdly, Let us hence duly learn to prize and value our Souls; is the Body such a rare Piece, what this is the Soul? the Body is but the Husk or Shell, the Soul is the Kernel; the Body is but the Cask, the Soul the precious Liquor contained in it; the Body is but the Cabinet; the Soul the Jewel;...
preview | full record— Ray [formerly Wray], John (1627–1705)
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
"This Voyage round the World was made in the Ship of Fancy, which every one knows, like the Cossaks Boats, sails as well by Land as Water.--And now I hope you are satisfied."
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
Date: 1691
"This Cobler having been drinking till his Brains were shipwrackt in a deluge of Canary, yet unable with all that Liquor to quench his Nose, which appeared so flaming, that when he was smoaking, it could not be discerned by the most critical Eye, at which end his Pipe burned with the more red-hot...
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
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: 1696
The soul may leave "the reins in the wild hand of nature, who like a Phaeton, drives the fiery chariot, and sets the world on flame"
preview | full record— Vanbrugh, Sir John (1664-1726)