Date: 1787

"Love was ever the touchstone to try the fine mind, / Sterling Virtue 'twill never debase; / No alloy can we know, from a passion refin'd,"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"Virtue sleeps / While all the finest faculties of mind / Rust, like the iron long unus'd"

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1787

"For scenes that frequent shapes of Death impart / Arm the firm breast, and steel the manly heart"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"To curse the hearts that selfish maxims steel, / And execrate the effects of patriot zeal.--"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"But when by various wrongs your bosom's steel'd, / Your groaning country calling to the field, / And 'twixt the foe and you the uncertain scale / Of fight must shew whose fortune shall prevail"

— Pye, Henry James (1745-1813)

Date: 1787

"Thus had he spoke, while pride his bosom steels, / Nor granted Frenchmen wit--but in their heels."

— Inchbald, Elizabeth (1753-1821); Damaniant

Date: 1787

"They will not always expertly distinguish the several species of geniuses, the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron."

— Adams, John (1735-1826)

Date: January 23, 1787, 1788

"Whelm'd with such violence of woe, / Would melt a heart of steel, / Which only those who love can know, / Who lose can only feel."

— Arley [Miles Peter Andrews (1742- 814)?]

Date: First performed August 4, 1787

"Ill founded precept too long has steel'd my breast--but still 'tis vulnerable-- this trial was too muc"

— Colman, George, the younger (1762-1836)

Date: 1788

"Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought / Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)