Date: 1659
"The minde is sometimes a Bull, sometimes a Serpent, and sometimes a flame of fire; and then the musick of the soule is quite out of tune; the Bells ring backward as in some general conflagration."
preview | full record— Tubbe, Henry (1618-1655)
Date: 1667; 2nd ed. in 1674
"Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move / Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird / Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid / Tunes her nocturnal note."
preview | full record— Milton, John (1608-1674)
Date: 1761
"Wake my Harp! to melting Measures, / Pour thy softest, sweetest Treasures, / Such as lift the Thoughts on high; / 'Till the rapt Soul, Earth forsaking, / Heaven-ward it's Flight is taking, / On the Wings of Harmony."
preview | full record— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)
Date: 1769
"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)
Date: 1787
"Fat flattens the most brilliant thoughts, / Like the buff-stop on harpsichords, or spinets-- / Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats, / That would have chirp'd away like linnets."
preview | full record— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)