Date: 1667

"For as a Watch by art is wound / To motion, such was mine: / But never had Orinda found / A Soul till she found thine."

— Philips [née Fowler], Katherine (1632-1664)

Date: 1712, 1728

"Poor, Senseless Party Engines! Who are taught / To act by Mechanism, not by Thought, / Who speak by rote, and sell their venal Words, / To please Grandees, and smooth Intriguing Lords!"

— Sewell, George (1690-1726)

Date: 1712

"See, how resistless Orators perswade, / Draw out their Forces, and the Heart invade: / Touch ev'ry Spring and Movement of the Soul, / This Appetite excite, and That controul."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"What Philosophic Builder will essay / By Rules Mechanic to unfold the way / How a Machine must be dispos'd to think, / Ideas how to frame, and how to link?"

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

Lucretius and Epicurus are asked, "How to the Mind a Thought reflected goes, / And how the conscious Engine knows it Knows."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1712

"Tell us, Lucretius, Epicurus, tell, / And you in Wit unrival'd shall excel, / How thro' the outward Sense the Object flies, / How in the Soul her Images arise. / What Thinking, what Perception is, explain; / What all the airy Creatures of the Brain; / How to the Mind a Thought reflected goes, / ...

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1715

"Musick's the Spring made by Divinest Art, / To move the Vital Machine of Man's Heart, / And circulate with Pow'r thro' ev'ry Part."

— Oldisworth, William (1680-1734)

Date: 1723

"Can'st say what diff'rent Turns the Spirits take, / When they of diff'rent Kinds Impressions make; / What vital Springs those Spirits in their Flight / Strike to cause Torment, what to give Delight."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1773, 1810

"The bard enjoys ethereal bliss to-day; / Bright are his thoughts, and vigorous is his lay: / To-morrow brings a melancholy scene; / Relaxed, untuned is all the fine machine;"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

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."

— Byrom, John (1692-1763)