Date: 1769

"Does thy iron heart / Deny me this--a portion of his grave?"

— Dow, Alexander (1735/6-1779)

Date: 1770

"Sylvia, if you persist to steel your heart, / Expect a mansion in that dire abode."

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: 1770

"Mean while, the duties of a man revolve, / And steel thy bosom with the firm resolve"

— Stockdale, Percival (1736-1811)

Date: w. prior to April 1770; 1785, 1837, 1875

"Did not thy iron conscience blush to write / This Tophet of the gentle arts polite?"

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: 1770

"Not greater wonder seiz'd th' abode / Of gloomy Dis, infernal god, / With pity when th' Orphean lyre / Did every iron heart inspire, / Sooth'd tortur'd ghosts with heavenly strains, / And respited eternal pains."

— Dalton, John (b. 1709, d. 1763)

Date: 1771

"What steel'd the heart of Brutus, sternly good, / To save fall'n Rome, redeem'd by Cæsar's blood?"

— Colvill, Robert (d. 1788)

Date: 1771

"Immortal Truth his bosom steels, / And guards him glorious to the goal"

— Cunningham, John (1729-1773)

Date: 1755, 1771

"But he whose active, unencumber'd mind / Leaves this low earth and all its mists behind, / Fond in a pure unclouded sky to glow, / Like the bright orb that rises on the Po, / O'er half the globe with steady splendour shines, / And ripens virtues as it ripens mines."

— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)

Date: 1771

"The selfish brutality of his behaviour on the stairs had steeled their hearts against all his arts and address"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: November 1772

"Must Chloe hope in vain to steel that heart / In which each nymph would gladly share a part?"

— Crabbe, George (1754-1832)