Date: 1734

"If I but close my eyes, strange images / In thousand forms and thousand colours rise, / Stars, rainbows, moons, green dragons, bears and ghosts, / An endless medley rush upon the stage, / And dance and riot wild in reason's court / Above control."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1734

"Self-Int'rest is the mighty Prince, / Who governs all without Controul, / And dastards even the very Soul"

— Forbes of Disblair (fl. 1765-1771)

Date: 1734

Conscience may grovel like a conquer'd Foe " While Int'rest with a threatning Frown, / Brow-beats her still, and knocks her down"

— Forbes of Disblair (fl. 1765-1771)

Date: 1734

"Conscience, forsook of Reason's Use, / Knows neither how to judge, nor choose: / For Reason and Self-Interest / Must always keep a closs Contest, / And Conscience still from Wall to Wall / Is bandy'd like a Tennis-Ball"

— Forbes of Disblair (fl. 1765-1771)

Date: [1731?] 1734

"Yet we have Reason, to supply / What nature did to man deny: / Weak viceroy! Who thy power will own, / When Custom has usurped thy throne?"

— Barber, Mary (c.1685-1755)

Date: 1733-4

"What thin partitions Sense from Thought divide: / And Middle natures, how they long to join, / Yet never pass th'insuperable line!"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1734

"Is then my heart to all the world beside / Softer than melting wax or summer snow, / But to myself harder than adamant?"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1734

"Our Depths who fathoms, or our Shallows finds? / Quick Whirls, and shifting Eddies, of our minds?"

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; / Reason's comparing balance rules the whole."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: 1733-4

"Th' Eternal Art educing good from ill, / Grafts on this Passion our best principle: / 'Tis thus the Mercury of Man is fix'd, / Strong grows the Virtue with his nature mix'd."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)