Date: First performed August 4, 1787

"Ill founded precept too long has steel'd my breast--but still 'tis vulnerable-- this trial was too muc"

— Colman, George, the younger (1762-1836)

Date: 1788

"Strong Genius, from whose forge of thought / Forms rise, to quick perfection wrought"

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: 1788

"True love purifies the soul from every base alloy."

— Cobb, James (1756-1818)

Date: 1780, 1788

"Authority! unfeeling power, / Whose iron heart can coldly doom / The Debtor, dragg'd from Pleasure's bower, / To sicken in the dungeon's gloom."

— Hayley, William (1745-1820)

Date: 1788

"So have I heard / The captive finch, in narrow cage confin'd, / Charm all his woe away with cheerful song, / Which might have melted e'en a heart of steel / To give him liberty"

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)

Date: 1788

"O yes, this is his valet that Lady Jane mentioned, this is her O'Donovan and my Aircourt, but my heart is steel'd against him"

— O'Keeffe, John (1747-1833)

Date: 1788

"With horns, and tail, and hoofs that make folks start; / And in my breast a millstone for a heart!"

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

Date: 1788

"When the sharp iron wounds his inmost soul, / And his strain'd eyes in burning anguish roll; / Will the parch'd negro find, ere he expire, / No pain in hunger, and no heat in fire?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1788

"The same warmth which determined her will make her repent; and sorrow, the rust of the mind, will never have a chance of being rubbed off by sensible conversation, or new-born affections of the heart."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"In a state of bliss, it will be the society of beings we can love, without the alloy that earthly infirmities mix with our best affections, that will constitute great part of our happiness."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)