Date: 1740

'To lock the breast, and steel th' obdurate heart, / Amid the piercing cries of sore distress / Impenetrable"

— Dyer, John (bap. 1699, d. 1757)

Date: 1742

As an artist pours and extracts gold from a mold, "So virtuous Education forms the Mind, / And leaves for Life the beauteous Stamp behind!"

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

Date: 1742

"What means this struggling in my breast, / If Thine is steel'd against my prayer?"

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1742

"My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1743

"In that dread Moment, how the frantick Soul / Raves round the Walls of her Clay Tenement, / Runs to each Avenue, and shrieks for Help, / But shrieks in vain!"

— Blair, Robert (1699-1746)

Date: 1743

"Be, what thy Country was, when, haughty Spain, / Blushful in Blood, bewail'd Eliza's Reign. / Then, iron hearted Biscay shook, with Dread!"

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1745

"Thrice shou'd Rebellion rear her Head, / With Front of Brass, but Heart of Lead"

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: 1745

"Thou'lt weep, I know thy gentle Soul, my Fair, / No senseless Steel, no rugged Flint dwells there."

— Whaley, John (bap. 1710, d. 1745)

Date: 1746

Man may hold "a heart of stone"

— Ruffhead, James

Date: 1748

"the Persian Bands / In fearful Wonder ask; What God unseen / Such Pow'r bestow'd, and steel'd a Woman's Heart"

— Warton, Thomas, the elder (1688-1745)