Date: 1795

France "spurning base controul ... pluck'd the iron from her wounded soul [and] O'erthrew her proud Bastile, as with a charm"

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1795

"Disdaining even the thought of flight or fear, / His life, his soul, by steady valor steel'd."

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1795

"Still to be serious, Pitt, before we part: / Let Mercy melt the mill-stone of thy heart."

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

Date: 1796

"There lux'ry spreads profusion wide, / To glut the iron breast of pride!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: w. 1787, 1797

"They only who are curst with breasts of steel / Can mock the foibles of surviving love"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1797, 1810

"For pressure but new-springs the generous mind; /As gold by Vulcan's torture is refined."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: July 1797, 1810

"See, while his thunders iron hearts assail, / The tyrants of each hemisphere turn pale!"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: w. 1794, 1797

"'Tis only those of purer clay / 'From sensual dross refined, / 'In whom the passions pleas'd obey / 'The God within the mind, / 'Who share my delegated aid, / 'Through Wisdom's golden mean convey'd / 'From the first source of sov'reign good."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1797

"Man, lost in ignorance and toil, / Becomes associate to the soil, / And his heart hardens like his native rock."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1798

"For scenes that frequent views of death impart, / Nerve the bold arm, and steel the manly heart"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)