Date: 1755

"Malice away, with all her Scorpions, creeps, / And Marius, iron-hearted Marius, weeps."

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: 1756

"A war of passions in their breasts they feel / As the muse fires, who have not hearts of Steel."

— Cooke, Thomas (1703-1756)

Date: 1759, performed 1776

"Steel then, ye Powers of heav'n, / Steel my firm soul with your own fortitude, / Free from alloy of passion."

— Mason, William (1725-1797)

Date: 1761

"Ye Pow'rs above my Breast with courage steel, / That when the Hour arrives, I may not feel / A Mother's weakness melting this sad Heart"

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: 1766, 1806

"Let this pervade at length thy heart of steel; / Yet, yet return, nor blush, Oh man! to feel."

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

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: 1773

"'Prepare (he said) the tragic scene to close, / 'And shun the fate that iron-hearts impose"

— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the Art. / / As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to h...

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: December 10, 1774; 1775

"He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1772-1781, 1781

"But, if thy faint springs / Refuse this large supply, steel thy firm soul / With stoic pride"

— Mason, William (1725-1797)