Date: First performed February 17, 1720.
"Then say, Eudocia, / If, like a Soul anneal'd in purging Fires, / After whole Years thou see'st me white again, / When thou, ev'n thou shalt think."
preview | full record— Hughes, John (1678?-1720)
Date: 1730
Love is a "strange unruly Something in the Soul" that "like a Fire once kindled in a Mine, / Can ne'er be thoroughly quench'd"
preview | full record— Miller, James (1704-1744)
Date: 1745
"Imagination is the Paphian shop, / Where feeble Happiness, like Vulcan, lame, / Bids foul Ideas, in their dark recess, / And hot as hell, (which kindled the black fires,) / With wanton art, those fatal arrows form / Which murder all thy time, health, wealth, and fame."
preview | full record— Young, Edward (bap. 1683, d. 1765)
Date: 1751
"This, and to see a succession of Humble Servants buzzing about a Mother, who took too much pride in addresses of that kind, what a beginning, what an example, to a constitution of tinder, so prepared to receive the spark struck from the steely forehead, and flinty heart, of such a Libertine, as ...
preview | full record— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)
Date: 1761
"But now Adversity's refining fire / Melts down the base alloy of earthly passions, / And purifies the temper of the heart."
preview | full record— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)
Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816
"Having uttered this exclamation, Soliman raised his hands towards heaven, in token of supplication; and the Caliph discerned through his bosom, which was transparent as crystal, his heart enveloped in flames."
preview | full record— Beckford, William (1760-1844)
Date: 1806
"Tho' party-zeal inflam'd his iron heart, / And prejudice sharp pointed ev'ry dart; / With glowing thoughts, his mind profusely teem'd."
preview | full record— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)
Date: 1922
"Desire destroys, consumes my mortal fears, / Transforming me into a shape of flame. / I will come out, back to your world of tears, / A stronger soul within a finer frame."
preview | full record— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)
Date: 2000
"I glimpsed a molten core to consciousness, a protean heat where everything could be reshaped. Yes, a molten core, like the core of the earth, deeper than the deposits of civilisation, beyond the complacencies of archaeology."
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)