Date: 1720

"Ah vile Heart, more obdurate and harder than Adamant! upon this cruel Anvil was forged the Chains that bound up my unlucky Destiny!"

— Manley, Delarivier (c. 1670-1724)

Date: 1721

"This, of all Vice, does most debase the Mind, / Gold is itself th'Allay to Human-kind."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

Date: 1722

"No Man can boast a God-like Mind, / From that Infernal Dross refin'd; / By Nature all are Base"

— Ward, Edward (1667-1731)

Date: 1723, 1740

"Those slighted Favours which cold Nymphs dispense, / Mere common Counters of the Sense, / Defective both in Mettle and in Measure, / A Lover's Fancy coins into a Treasure."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

Date: 1723, 1740

"And if their Heads but any Substance hold, / Love ripens all that Dross into the purest Gold."

— Sheffield, John, first duke of Buckingham and Normanby (1647-1721)

Date: 1726

One may be galled "with Reproaches and Contempt, more heavy, and corroding into my Soul, than the Load and Rust of my Irons eating into my Flesh? "

— Southerne, Thomas (1659-1746)

Date: 1735, 1745

"Only to trifle sev'nty Years away / In this frail Flesh, this Tenement of Clay, / In Doubt, in Fear, in Sorrow, in Despair, / Then cease to be, and vanish into Air?"

— Trapp, Joseph (1679-1747)

Date: 1736

"To live without Restraint, is to live indeed, cry'd she, and I no longer wonder, that the free Mind finds it so difficult to yield to those Fetters, Priests and Philosophers would bind it in, and which were never forged by, nor are consistent with Reason."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1739

"More hard than Marble is my Heart, / And foul with Sins of deepest Stain: / But Thou the mighty Saviour art, / Nor flow'd thy cleansing Blood in vain. / Ah! soften, melt this Rock, and may / Thy Blood wash all these Stains away."

— Wesley, John and Charles

Date: 1739

"My GOD, what is a Human Heart? / Silver or Gold, or precious Stone; / Or Star, or Rainbow; or a Part / Of All, or all thy World in One?"

— Wesley, John and Charles