Date: 1796

"The climate's heat, 'tis well known, operates with no small influence upon the constitutions of the Spanish ladies: but the most abandoned would have thought it an easier task to inspire with passion the marble statue of St. Francis than the cold and rigid heart of the immaculate Ambrosio."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)

"Such hardships may steel the mind and body against the injuries of fortune; but my timid reserve was astonished by the crowd and tumult of the school; the want of strength and activity disqualified me for the sports of the play-field; nor have I forgotten how often in the year forty-six I was re...

— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)

Date: 1796

"Low in a humble Preface authors kneel; / In vain, the wearied reader's heart is steel."

— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)

Date: 1797

"And every sordid, base alloy, / Let's from our bosoms move; / For was our gold but Irish brass, / Good humour's stamp can make it pass"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: w. 1787, 1797

"They only who are curst with breasts of steel / Can mock the foibles of surviving love"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1797

"--oh! here's Redmond O Hanlon, though now the constable and the county keeper, yet he was a heart of steel, that I'm sure of."

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1797

"Yes, in Antrim I was a heart of steel, in Clonmel I was a white boy."

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1797

"For then first throbb'd an heart of steel."

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1797, 1810

"For pressure but new-springs the generous mind; /As gold by Vulcan's torture is refined."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: July 1797, 1810

"See, while his thunders iron hearts assail, / The tyrants of each hemisphere turn pale!"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)