Date: 1766

"I know not whether the remark is to our honour or otherwise, that the lessons of wisdom have never such a power over us, as when they are wrought into the heart, through the ground-work of a story which engages the passions: Is it that we are like iron, and must first be heated before we can be ...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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: 1768

"He gave a deep sigh--I saw the iron enter into his soul--I burst into tear"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"But 'tis a civil thing, said I--and as I generally act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no purpose, that I know of, but to encompass the heart with adamant--I turn'd instantly about to the lady."

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1768

"Ye whose clay-cold heads and luke-warm hearts can argue down or mask your passions, tell me, what trespass is it that man should have them?"

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1769

"To the arts of the libertine, however fair, my heart had always been steeled."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

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: 1755, 1771

"But he whose active, unencumber'd mind / Leaves this low earth and all its mists behind, / Fond in a pure unclouded sky to glow, / Like the bright orb that rises on the Po, / O'er half the globe with steady splendour shines, / And ripens virtues as it ripens mines."

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)