Date: w. 1687 [published 1907]

"Yet potent Nature frankly has bestow'd / Such various gifts amongst the mingl'd Crowd, */ That I believe, the dullest of the kind, / Wou'd he but Husband and Manure his Mind,* / Might find some Exce'llence there, which well-improv'd / At home might make him Pleas'd, in public Lov'd."

— Prior, Matthew (1664-1721)

Date: 1748

"Thus on the sands of Afric's burning plains, / However deeply made, no long impress remains; / The lightest leaf can leave its figure there; / The strongest form is scattered by the air. / So yielding the warm temper of your mind,"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748

The mind or heart may be like rock: "So numerous herds are driven o'er the rock, / No print is left of all the passing flock; / So sings the wind around the solid stone, / So vainly beat the waves with fruitless moan"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748

"But should some swain more skillful than the rest, / his name on this cold marble breast, / Not rolling ages could deface that name."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748

The [heart?] may be wounded and the wound may be secret

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1792

"But souls in common are a dreary waste, / By brambles, thistles, barb'rous docks disgrac'd; / That need the ploughshare, harrow, and the fire--"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)