Date: 1686

"By any other hand: She's all divine, / And by a splendid lustre doth outshine / All masculine souls, who only seem to be / Made up of pride and their lov'd luxury."

— Egerton [née Fyge; other married name Field], Sarah (1670-1723)

Date: 1686, 1712

"See how my melting Passions hast and run, / Like Virgin-wax before the scorching Sun!"

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"But while confin'd to this dark Cell I lie, / My captive Soul can't reach its native Sky"

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"Here, even my Will's a slave to Passions made, / Passions which have its Liberty betray'd."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

One may be " to a narrow Dungeon confin'd, / A Cave that darkens and restrains [the] Mind"

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"When first my Soul put on its fleshly Load, / It was Imprison'd in the dark Abode; / My Feet were Fetters, my Hands Manacles, / My Sinews Chains, and all Confinement else; / My Bones the Bars of my loath'd Prison grate; / My Tongue the Turn-key, and my Mouth the Gate."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"O! that some usual Labour were injoyn'd, / And not the Tyrant Vice enslav'd my mind! / No weight of Chains cou'd grieve my captive Hands, / Like the loath'd Drudg'ry of its base Commands."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686, 1712

"Thus Vice and Virtue do my Soul divide, / Like a Ship tost between the Wind and Tide."

— Arwaker, Edmund (c.1655-1730)

Date: 1686

"Nor does its [sickness's] Malice in these bounds restrain, / But shakes the Throne of Sacred Wit, the Brain, / And with a ne're enough detested Force / Reason disturbs, and turns out of its Course."

— Killigrew, Anne (1660-1685)

Date: 1704

"Erect your schemes with as much method and skill as you please; yet, if the materials be nothing but dirt, spun out of your own entrails (the guts of modern brains), the edifice will conclude at last in a cobweb; the duration of which, like that of other spiders’ webs, may be imputed to their be...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)