Date: 1700

"As softest metals are not slow to melt, / And pity soonest runs in gentle minds:"

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: May 10, 1704

"By the Pulpit are adumbrated the writings of our modern saints in Great Britain, as they have spiritualised and refined them from the dross and grossness of sense and human reason."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1717

"Such feign'd Amours, and real Hate / Attend the Matrimonial State; / When sacred Vows are bought and sold, / And Hearts are ty'd with Threads of Gold."

— Fenton, Elijah (1683-1730)

Date: 1722

"No Man can boast a God-like Mind, / From that Infernal Dross refin'd; / By Nature all are Base"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1727

"Ned cou'd not well digest this Change, / Forc'd in the World at large to range; / With Babel's Monarch turn'd to grass, / Wou'd it not break an Heart of Brass?"

— Somervile, William (1675-1742)

Date: 1739, 1741

"A Scene so sweetly sad, Who fail'd to feel, / Must have an Eye of Flint, or Heart of Steel"

— Ogle, George (1704-1746)

Date: 1739, 1741

"A Scene, all human Nature must detest! / Yet cou'd the feeling Mother steel her Breast"

— Ogle, George (1704-1746)

Date: 1741

"But soon his tender Mind th' Impression felt, / As softest Metals are not slow to melt, / And Pity soonest runs in gentle Minds"

— Ogle, George (1704-1746)

Date: 1759

"Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient; every thing floated in their mind unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds the circles of the first."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1761

"You, the miser's haunt be near; / Break his rest with causeless fear, / Creak his doors, his windows shake, / 'Till his iron heart shall quake."

— Hawkesworth, John (bap. 1720, d. 1773)