Date: 1783

"O sheathe their hearts with triple steel, that they / May emulate their fathers' virtues"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1784

"No, Edwitha--you have a native dignity of mind incapable of degradation or alloy."

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1784

" I am form'd horribly robust, as thou art, without a grain of sensibility--a heart of stone, and nerves of cast iron"

— Andrews, Miles Peter (1742-1814)

Date: 1785

"Thus rust the Mind's best powers."

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1785

Wisdom is a pearl "with most success / Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

The mind may be "polish'd"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Mark now the proof I give thee, that the brave / Need no such aids as superstition lends / To steel their hearts against the dread of death!"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1785

"Yet patient wait, till grace his will subdue, / The fire his dross, the spirit his heart renew:"

— Perronet, Edward (1721-1792)

Date: 1785

"While in high life our hearts the fashions steel, / Too gay to listen, and too fine to feel--"

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1785-7, 1791, 1792

"Yet are there some who think (but what a shame!) / Poor people's souls like pence of Birmingham, / Adulterated brass--base stuff--abhorr'd-- / That never can pass current with the Lord; / And think because of wealth they boast a store, / With ev'ry freedom they may treat the poor."

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