Date: 1737

"Whatever fancy paints, invention pours, / Judgment digests, the well tuned bosom feels, / Truth natural, moral, or divine, has taught, / The virtues dictate, or the Muses sing."

— Thomson, James (1700-1748)

Date: 1737

"I learn to smooth and harmonize my Mind, / Teach ev'ry Thought within its bounds to roll, / And keep the equal Measure of the Soul."

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744)

Date: January 1739

"Now, if we consider the human mind, we shall find that with regard to the passions, it is not of the nature of a wind instrument of music, which, in running over all the notes, immediately loses the sound after the breath ceases; but rather resembles a string-instrument, where, after each s...

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Now chear your Heart, and sing a Song, / And tune your Mind to Joy."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Your two Souls, I can see that, are like well-tun'd Instruments: But they are too high-set for me a vast deal."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741

"Just so, the quality or disposition in a fiddle to play tunes, with the several modifications of this tune-playing quality in playing of preludes, sarabands, jigs and gavottes, are as much real qualities in the instrument as the thought or imagination is in the mind of the person that composes t...

— Pope, Alexander (1688-1744); Arbuthnot, John (bap. 1677, d. 1735)

Date: 1742

"Then welcome, Death, thy dreaded harbingers, / Age and Disease: Disease, though long my guest,-- / That plucks my nerves, those tender strings of life; / Which, pluck'd a little more, will toll the bell / That calls my few friends to my funeral."

— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)

Date: 1742

"What satisfaction, when he looks within, to find the most turbulent passions tuned to just harmony and concord, and every jarring sound banished from this enchanting music!"

— Hume, David (1711-1776)

Date: 1743

"Sound was the Body, and the Soul serene; / Like two sweet Instruments ne'er out of Tune, / That play their several Parts."

— Blair, Robert (1699-1746)

Date: 1744, 1772, 1795

"Or flows their semblance from that mystic tone / To which the new-born mind's harmonious powers / At first were strung?"

— Akenside, Mark (1720-1771)