Date: 1712, 1728

"Poor, Senseless Party Engines! Who are taught / To act by Mechanism, not by Thought, / Who speak by rote, and sell their venal Words, / To please Grandees, and smooth Intriguing Lords!"

— Sewell, George (1690-1726)

Date: 1712

"See, how resistless Orators perswade, / Draw out their Forces, and the Heart invade: / Touch ev'ry Spring and Movement of the Soul, / This Appetite excite, and That controul."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Their pow'rful Voice can flying Troops arrest, / Confirm the weak, and melt th' obdurate Breast; / Chace from the sad their melancholly Air, / Sooth Discontent, and solace anxious Care."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"When threat'ning Tides of Rage and Anger rise, / Usurp the Throne, and Reason's Sway despise, / When in the Seats of Life this Tempest reigns, / Beats thro' the Heart, and drives along the Veins, / See, Eloquence with Force perswasive binds / The restless Waves, and charms the warring Winds: Res...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"From thence a nobler Flight she did essay, / The Mind's extended Empire to survey."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"When Man with Reason dignify'd is born, / No Images his naked Mind adorn: / No Sciences or Arts enrich his Brain, / Nor Fancy yet displays her pictur'd Train."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Our Intellectual, like the Body's Eye, / Whilst in the Womb, no Object can descry; / Yet is dispos'd to entertain the Light, / And judge of Things when offer'd to the Sight."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"When Objects thro' the Senses Passage gain, / And fill with various Imag'ry the Brain, / Th' Ideas, which the Mind does thence perceive,/ To Think and Know the first Occasion give."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Then grant a Man his Being did commence, / Deny'd by Nature each external Sense, / These Ports unopen'd, diffident we guess, / Th' unconscious Soul no Image could possess. / Tho' what in such a State the restless Train / Of Spirits would produce, we ask in vain."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Hence stampt on Nature we Perfection find, / Fair as th'Idea in th'Eternal Mind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)