Date: 1658

"And in the furnace of affliction, / Their drossie souls thou dost refine"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"Our hearts all vice, as Amphitane gold draws, / The Load-stone iron, as the Amber strawes."

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"As by instinct the Loadstone draws / The iron, as the Amber straws; / So let thy grace mine heart attract, / Dear Lord!"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"O make me have respect / To all thy righteous Laws, begin / To purge out all my dross: my Tinn / Remove far from me"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1658

"Cleanse me from soul infecting sin, / And purely purg away my dross, / O do thou take from me my Tin;"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1702

"We'll think she brings with her Estate a Mind, / Pure as her Sterling, from it's Dross Refin'd."

— Sedley, Sir Charles (1639-1701)

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: 1734

"Conscience hears / The words of anguish, and dissolves in tears. / Ev'n iron souls relent, and hearts of stone / Burst at these mournings, and repeat the groan:"

— Watts, Isaac (1674-1748)

Date: 1738

"The Grecian Prince the Love of Virtue taught: / With Fortitude and Patience steel'd his Breast."

— Boyse, Samuel (1708-1749)

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)