Date: 1764

"When she with apathy the breast would steel, / And teach us, deeply feeling, not to feel"

— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)

Date: 1767

"For oh the time will come, when you shall feel / Stabs in your heart more sharp than stabs of steel"

— Dodd, William (1729-1777)

Date: 1767, 1784

"Think not my breast is steel'd against the claims / Of sweet humanity."

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1767, 1784

The native "British Ore" is polished by the social arts, and useful toil: they "polish life, and civilize the mind!"

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1770

"Not greater wonder seiz'd th' abode / Of gloomy Dis, infernal god, / With pity when th' Orphean lyre / Did every iron heart inspire, / Sooth'd tortur'd ghosts with heavenly strains, / And respited eternal pains."

— Dalton, John (b. 1709, d. 1763)

Date: 1774

"Her soul, refin'd from passion's base alloy, / Seem'd wrapt in visions of seraphic joy."

— Roberts, William Hayward (d. 1791)

Date: 1777

"Courage, the warrior's bosom steel'd."

— Polwhele, Richard (1760-1838)

Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792

"Yet are there some who think (but what a shame!) / Poor people's souls like pence of Birmingham, / Adulterated brass--base stuff--abhorr'd-- / That never can pass current with the Lord; / And think because of wealth they boast a store, / With ev'ry freedom they may treat the poor."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1790

"Is there a man whose iron heart is proof / Against such charms?"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1790

"'Who foils a Persian? Are they not all flint, / 'All steel and iron to the very heart?"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)