Date: 1680

"I said you were all Mettle; A brazen face, a leaden brain, and a copper nose and beard."

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1681

"[A] Woman has a sweet time on't with any Soldier Lover of 'em all, with their Iron minds and Buff hearts"

— Behn, Aphra (1640?-1689)

Date: 1700

"Oh! all ye Powers that virtuous Love inspire, / Assist me now: inform my Vocal Organs / With Angel Eloquence, such as can melt / His Heart of Flint, and move his former Kindness."

— Centlivre [née Freeman; other married name Carroll], Susanna (bap. 1669?, d. 1723)

Date: 1700

"What Heart of Steel / Could ere resist such Beauty drest in Tears?"

— Centlivre [née Freeman; other married name Carroll], Susanna (bap. 1669?, d. 1723)

Date: 1703

"Gold is a sure Bait to gain him, no other Loadstone can attrack his iron heart, 'tis proof against the force of Beauty, else I should not need this Stratagem, for Nature has not prov'd a Nigard to my Daughter."

— Centlivre [née Freeman; other married name Carroll], Susanna (bap. 1669?, d. 1723)

Date: 1705

"[S]he must have lov'd him, though her Heart had been made of Brass"

— Centlivre [née Freeman; other married name Carroll], Susanna (bap. 1669?, d. 1723)

Date: February 15, 1776

"George, steel your heart, steel your heart, you Rogue."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1779

"Then steel your mind, to bear the story's horror."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1787

"Thus had he spoke, while pride his bosom steels, / Nor granted Frenchmen wit--but in their heels."

— Inchbald, Elizabeth (1753-1821); Damaniant

Date: 1793

"Tears from our sex are not always the result of grief; they are frequently no more than little sympathetic tributes which we pay to our fellow-beings, while the mind and the heart are steeled against the weakness which our eyes indicate"

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)