Why should the follies of this dull age Draw from thy pen such an immodest rage As seems to blast thy else-immortal bays, When thine own tongue proclaims thy itch of praise? Such thirst will argue drought.

-Carew,Thomas
  'To Ben  Jonson, Upon occasion of his Ode of Defiance annexed to his play of  The New Inn'.

Supposing the Press in order, the people in their right wits, and news or no news to be the question, a Public Mercury should not have my Vote, because I think it makes the Multitude too familiar with the actions and counsels of their superiors, too pragmatical and censorious, and gives them not onlyan itch but a kind of colourable right to be meddling with the government.

-L'Estrange, Sir Roger
  The Intelligencer, 31  Aug.

Red-and-gold disease†an itch, the theater a place to scratch it†a yearning for the wider world.

-Muschamp, Herbert
  In the NewYork Times, 30  Jul. The phrase'red-and-gold disease' was coined by Lincoln Kirstein's mother when her son began haunting theatres.

If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy†why you itch all over in upward of a thousand places.

-Twain, Mark pseudonym of  Samuel Langhorne Clemens
  TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn, ch.2.

The urge to write poetry is like having an itch.When the itch becomes annoying enough, you scratch it.

-Warren, Robert Penn
  In the NewYorkTimes,16 Dec.