?c1450 in G. J. Aungier Hist. & Antiq. Syon Monastery (1840) 385 Suche as gretly rowte or make any unrestful noyse in ther sleppe..schal be purueyd a nother place, wher they may slepe with oute unrestyng of other.

1615 T. Adams Blacke Devill 9 Well; gone he is out of this Man; and we must therein consider..1. His vnroosting. 2. His vnresting.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis iv. 80 The poore vnresting Dido could catch no such happye Season, too be quiet.

1604 A. Scoloker Daiphantus sig. F4 The wandring soule Seeking for rest in his vnresting spirit.

a1652 R. Brome Eng. Moor iv. iv. 63 in Five New Playes (1659) What is she? I am fear-struck. Tis some unresting shaddow.

1748 J. Thomson Castle of Indolence ii. lxxxi But ay the ruthless driver goads them on,..Ne ever find they rest from their unresting fone.

1753 R. Glover Boadicia i. iv. 7 Victorious sister, may th'unresting labour Of fortune weave new honours to adorn thee.

1812 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Cantos I & II i. lxxxiii. 49 Life-abhorring gloom Wrote on his faded brow curst Cain's unresting doom.

1832 T. Carlyle in Athenæum 1 July 24 Work, then, even as he [sc. Goethe] has done, and does—‘Like a star unhasting, yet unresting’.

1856 ‘The Druid’ Post & Paddock x. 168 Those ballads, which they sing with such unresting diligence.

1892 N.Y. Times 19 Feb. 10/1 The deep sonorous roll of the unresting breakers that hurl themselves ceaselessly upon the broad curving shore.

1933 D. B. Macdonald Hebrew Literary Genius xiv. 202 To Ecclesiastes this toiling, unresting universe suggested an infinite weariness in perpetual transition and recurrence.

1949 W. Havighurst Signature of Time 32 Time had moved over the island—carrying away the life of his people, leaving the patient rocks and the unresting water.

1975 Guardian 30 Aug. 18/6 He is an unresting competitor.

2011 R. R. Smith Driving with Plato vii. 78 To quell the sexual agitation.., to satisfy it and so bring some respite from the unresting provocations.

1621 M. Wroth Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania i. 68 His mind as vnrestingly running on Vrania, as a hurt bird, that neuer leaues flying till he falls downe.

1834 T. Carlyle Sartor Resartus i. x. 23/2 The silent Arachnes that weave unrestingly in our Imagination.

1893 Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts & Sci. 1891–2 27 429 He was unrestingly active in the introduction of methods that had been elsewhere found serviceable.

1931 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Jan. 110/1 He..travelled three days unrestingly and uncomfortably, but economically.

2011 Sunday Times (Nexis) 23 Jan. (Culture section) 44 It is characteristic of the man that, even in the Tower, he groped unrestingly for advancement.

1839 T. De Quincey Dinner in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Dec. 823 The German imagination has been most struck with the duration of the man's life..the English by the unrestingness..his incapacity of repose.

1911 J. A. Thomson Biol. Seasons iv. 325 The sublimest examples of unrestingness are afforded by the movements of the heavenly bodies, and of the earth itself.

2002 Independent (Nexis) 15 Oct. (Features section) 13 Graham's art..is a beautiful encapsulation of rest and unrestingness.