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."

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1786

"Dismiss their cares when they dismiss their flock, / Machines themselves, and govern'd by a clock."

— 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!"

— 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."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1795

"Still to be serious, Pitt, before we part: / Let Mercy melt the mill-stone of thy heart."

— 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."

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1800,1806

"Thrice he rose, and thrice / His feet recoil'd; and still the livid flame / Lengthen'd and quiver'd as the moaning wind / Pass'd thro' the rushy crevice, while his heart / Beat, like the death-watch, in his shudd'ring breast."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: w. 1797-1807, published 1893

"So shall [you] govern over all let Moral Duty tune your tongue*But be your hearts harder than the nether millstone"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)