The Eureka, also known as the Latin Verse Machine, is a mid-19th century machine for generating Latin verses, created and exhibited by the Quaker inventor John Clark of Bridgwater.
Clark, a cousin of Cyrus Clark, was born at Greinton in Somerset in 1785 and moved to Bridgwater in 1809. There he was first a grocer and later a printer. In 1830 he started work on the Eureka and was able to exhibit it in 1845 in the Egyptian Hall in Picadilly. Visitors, for the admission price of one shilling, could see a machine that resembled a ‘small bureau bookcase’, with six narrow windows in the front. As it prepared each new verse, the machine would play the God Save the Queen, becoming silent after about a minute, when the verse was complete.