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."

— 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"

— 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."

— 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 ...

— 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."

— 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."

— 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."

— 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."

— 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."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)