Date: 1746, 1753

"Not always, shall ambition's muddied brain / Work to perswade--yet, hold example vain!"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1748

"But how will this dismantled soul appear, / When stripped of all it lately held so dear, / Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?"

— Leapor, Mary (1722-1746)

Date: 1747-8

"Because a woman's heart may be at one time adamant, at another wax."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Rot me if it be not my full persuasion, that if he had, her heart would have been found to be either iron or marble"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"'This, says he, I will for ever remember against her, in order to steel my own heart, that I may cut thro' a rock of ice to hers"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Then will I steel my heart with these remembrances"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"But I have now once more steeled my heart."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1748

"But should some swain more skillful than the rest, / his name on this cold marble breast, / Not rolling ages could deface that name."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: w. 1740, 1748

"The flannel Crew / With cunning joy the fond repentance view, / Pronounce Him bless'd, his miracles proclaim, / Teach the slight croud t' adore his hallow'd name, / Exalt his praise above the Saints of old, / And coin his sinking conscience into Gold."

— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)