Date: 1785

"Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave / Need no such aids as superstition lends / To steel their hearts against the dread of death!"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

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: 1786

"But if (which Pow'rs above prevent) / That iron-hearted carl, Want, / Attended, in his grim advances, / By sad mistakes, and black mischances"

— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)

Date: 1787

"Whate'er pursuits the attentive mind employ / Must mark our manners with a strong alloy"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"Love was ever the touchstone to try the fine mind, / Sterling Virtue 'twill never debase; / No alloy can we know, from a passion refin'd,"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"Virtue sleeps / While all the finest faculties of mind / Rust, like the iron long unus'd"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"For scenes that frequent shapes of Death impart / Arm the firm breast, and steel the manly heart"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"To curse the hearts that selfish maxims steel, / And execrate the effects of patriot zeal.--"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"But when by various wrongs your bosom's steel'd, / Your groaning country calling to the field, / And 'twixt the foe and you the uncertain scale / Of fight must shew whose fortune shall prevail"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1788

"When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, / And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll; / Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, / No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)