Date: 1598

"His heart like an agate with your print impressed, / Proud with his form, in his eye pride expressed."

— Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Date: 1675

"Our Poet hope's you'll not expect to day, / T'have all his down-right thoughts drest up so gay, / If his Coyn chinks too much, you'll doubt allay."

— Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691)

Date: 1679

"From Heav'n was with a Silver Cord let down, / And into the Souls mass divinely thrown, / To be its Salt, miraculously contriv'd"

— Woodford, Samuel (1636-1700)

Date: 1689

And yet there is, there is one prize / Lock'd in an adamantine Breast; / Storm that then, Love, if thou be'st wise, / A Conquest above all the rest, / Her Heart, who binds all Hearts in chains, / Castanna's Heart untouch'd remains."

— Cotton, Charles (1630-1687)

Date: 1696

"But there's no fault in her 1000 l. a year, and that's the Loadstone that attracts my heart--The Wise, and Grave, may tell us of strange Chimæra's call'd Virtues in a Woman, and that they alone are the best Dowry; but faith we younger Brothers are of another mind."

— Cibber, Colley (1671-1757)

Date: 1706, 1709

"O 'tis a Thought would melt a Rock, / And make a Heart of Iron move."

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1706, 1709

"COME let me Love: or is my Mind / Harden'd to Stone, or froze to Ice?"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1719-1720, 1725

"Oh, Melliora! didst thou but know the thousandth Part of what this Moment I endure, the strong Convulsions of my warring Thoughts, thy Heart, steel'd as it is, and frosted round with Virtue, wou'd burst its icy Shield, and melt in Tears of Blood, to pity me."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1720

"Ah vile Heart, more obdurate and harder than Adamant! upon this cruel Anvil was forged the Chains that bound up my unlucky Destiny!"

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1723, 1740

"Those slighted Favours which cold Nymphs dispense, / Mere common Counters of the Sense, / Defective both in Mettle and in Measure, / A Lover's Fancy coins into a Treasure."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)