Date: 1747

"Something there is within this strange machine, / Which elevates my mind, and makes me dive / Too deep in fate"

— Gilbert, Thomas (bap. 1713, d. 1766)

Date: October 1750, 1752, 1791

"The less the body to the view, / The soul (like springs in closer durance pent) / Is all exertion, ever new, / Unceasing, unextinguish'd, and unspent"

— Smart, Christopher (1722-1771)

Date: 1752

A puppet may be "compell'd by secret Springs" just as an engine "moves with Motions not its own"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [pseud.]

Date: 1753

"Passion! the spring, that all life's wheels employs, / Winds up the working thought--and heightens joys."

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1757-9

"He gapes to catch the Droppings of my Lord; / And tickled to the Soul at every Joke, / Like a press'd Watch repeats what t'other spoke: / Echo to Nonsense! such a Scene to hear!"

— Duncombe, John (1729-1786) [Editor]

Date: 1758, 1781

"Hence then the Cause of all Defects is seen, / one wrong Movement spoils the whole Machine."

— Hawkins, William (1721-1801)

Date: 1759

"As no Man mind's those Clocks that use to go / Apparently to[o] over fast, or slow."

— Butler, Samuel (1613-1680)

Date: 1759

"If not with Prejudice, and Passion blind, / In Reason's Glass, you will your Error find. / Search the Recesses of the human Soul, / Mark there, what secret Springs her Acts controul."

— Marriott, Thomas (d. 1766)

Date: 1761, 1790

"Whence can this very motion take its birth? / Not sure from matter, from dull clods of earth; / But from a living spirit lodg'd within, / Which governs all the bodily machine"

— Jenyns, Soame (1704-1787); Browne, Isaac Hawkins (1706-1760)

Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875

"The wise look further, and the wise can see / The hands of Sawney actuating thee; / The clock-work of thy conscience turns about, / Just as his mandates wind thee in and out."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)