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| Thomas Wyck Scholar in his Study before 1677 oil on canvas Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm |
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| Jean Nocret Portrait of Louis XIV with members of the royal family 1670 oil on canvas Château de Versailles |
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| David Teniers Peasants playing cards 1670 oil on canvas private collection |
The Unconcerned: Song
Now that the world is all in amaze,
Drums and trumpets rending heavens,
Wounds a bleeding, mortals dying,
Widows and orphans piteously crying;
Armies marching, towns in a blaze,
Kingdoms and states at sixes and sevens:
What should an honest fellow do,
Whose courage and fortunes run equally low?
Let him live, say I, till his glass be run,
As easily as he may;
Let the wind and the sand of his glass flow together,
For life's but a winter's day;
Alas! from sun to sun
The time's very short, very dirty the weather,
And we silently creep away.
Let him nothing do, he could wish undone,
And keep himself safe from the noise of a gun.
– Thomas Flatman (1674)
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| John Michael Wright Portrait of Sir John Corbet of Adderley 1676 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Mary Beale Portrait of Mary Wither of Andwell ca. 1670-75 oil on canvas Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Peter Lely Portrait of Bartholomew Beale ca. 1670 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Peter Lely Portrait of Aphra Behn ca. 1670 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Godfrey Kneller Lucretia ca. 1672-75 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Benedetto Gennari Cleopatra 1674-75 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Michel Corneille the Younger Aspasia among Greek Philosophers 1670s oil on canvas, mounted on panel Château de Versailles |
from A Satire against Reason and Mankind
Were I (who to my cost already am
One of those strange, prodigious creatures, man)
A spirit free to choose, for my own share,
What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,
I'd be a dog, a monkey, or a bear,
Or anything but that vain animal
Who is so proud of being rational.
The senses are too gross, and he'll contrive
A sixth, to contradict the other five,
And before certain instinct, will prefer
Reason, which fifty times for one does err;
Reason, an ignus fatuus in the mind,
Which, leaving light of nature, sense, behind,
Pathless and dangerous wandering ways it takes
Through error's fenny bogs and thorny brakes;
Whilst the misguided follower climbs with pain
Mountains of whimsies, heaped in his own brain;
Stumbling from thought to thought, falls headlong down
Into doubt's boundless sea, where, like to drown,
Books bear him up awhile, and make him try
To swim with bladders of philosophy;
In hopes still to o'ertake the escaping light,
The vapour dances in his dazzling sight
Till, spent, it leaves him to eternal night.
Then old age and experience, hand in hand,
Lead him to death, and make him understand,
After a search so painful and so long,
That all his life he has been in the wrong.
Huddled in dirt the reasoning engine lies,
Who was so proud, so witty, and so wise.
– John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1679)
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| Marcantonio Franceschini Lot and his Daughters 1676-77 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| follower of Salvator Rosa Monks Fishing before 1673 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| David Teniers Cobbler 1671 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Bartolomé Murillo Virgin of the Annunciation ca. 1670-80 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |