Date: 1661

"GRACE though she could have with one single dart / The stubborn Will pierc'd th'row her Steely heart."

— Pordage, Samuel (bap. 1633, d. c. 1691)

Date: 1684

"This Youth to dinner came, Intruding fashion, / With certain Friend; Danc'd with that Golden Lass; / Found Courting pause sometimes, no Heart of brass, / Softned, orecame: yet once before beheld; / Woo'd then by Looks, now th' Hand and Tongue reveal'd / ...

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1694

"Thy mighty Soul, stamp'd of Heav'n's noblest Coin, / More Pure than Gold, more Precious and Divine, / Does in thy Everlasting Vertues shine."

— Cobb, Samuel (bap. 1675, d. 1713)

Date: 1723

"If offer'd in a mild and tim'rous Tone, / Nor urg'd and press'd, its [Counsel's] feeble Force is gone, / And leaves no more Impressions on the Mind, / Than Rocks receive from a soft Breeze of Wind."

— Blackmore, Sir Richard (1654-1729)

Date: 1729

"As Iron is to be hammer'd whilst it is hot and ductile, so Children are to be taught when they are young"

— Mandeville, Bernard (bap. 1670, d. 1733)

Date: 1738, 1739

"Like Twigs, entrusted to the Planter's Pains, / Who prunes, engrafts, indulges, or restrains, / Till in the Garden Ornament they yield, / And Fruit, which else had cumber'd up the Field: / Or that rich Ore we from the Indies bring, / Which bears, refin'd, the Image of the King; / But mix'd for-e...

— Bancks, John (1709-1751)

Date: 1742

"Thus on soft sophas in her cave reclin'd, / Slept the fam'd goddess of the leaden mind."

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: September 27, 1746

"My virtue shows what 'twas the gods design'd, / By chance on Africk's clay they stamp'd a Roman mind."

— Hervey, John, second Baron Hervey of Ickworth (1696-1743)

Date: 1755

"Prest with heart corroding grief and years, / To the gay court a rural shed prefers."

— Pope [from Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language]

Date: 1765, 1770

"Wonder they cannot blush, they do not feel, / They must be harden'd like an heart of steel."

— Thompson, Edward (1738-1786)