Date: 1773
"Strong Passions draw, like Horses that are strong, / The Body-Coach of Flesh and Blood along; / While subtle Reason, with each Rein in Hand, / Sits on the Box, and has them at Command; / Rais'd up aloft, to see and to be seen, / Judges the Track, and guides the gay Machine."
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1773
"They who are loud in human Reason's Praise, / And celebrate the Drivers of our Days, / Seem to suppose, by their continual Bawl, / That Passions, Reason, and Machine, is all / To them the Windows are drawn up, and clear / Nothing that does not outwardly appear."
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1777
"I'd hangings weave, in fancy's loom / For Lady Norton's dressing room."
preview | full record— Mason, William (1725-1797)
Date: 1784
"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...
preview | full record— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)
Date: 1785
"I tread his deck, / Ascend his topmast, through his peering eyes / Discover countries, with a kindred heart / Suffer his woes and share in his escapes, / While fancy, like the finger of a clock, / Runs the great circuit, and is still at home."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1786
"Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock, / Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock."
preview | full record— Cowper, William (1731-1800)
Date: 1788
"With horns, and tail, and hoofs that make folks start; / And in my breast a millstone for a heart!"
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1789
"For of calamity so long the prey, / Imagination now has lost her powers, / Nor will her fairy loom again essay / To dress affliction in a robe of flowers."
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1795
"Still to be serious, Pitt, before we part: / Let Mercy melt the mill-stone of thy heart."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)
Date: 1800
"Piece of the nether millstone is his heart / Who marks ill-pleas'd the frolic of the child, / Or views the rural festival unmov'd."
preview | full record— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)