Date: 1746, 1753

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

— Hill, Aaron (1685-1750)

Date: 1746

Man may hold "a heart of stone"

— Ruffhead, James

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: 1748

"But my heart was so steel'd against her charms by pride and resentment, which were two chief ingredients in my disposition, that I remain'd insensible to all her arts"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

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)