Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,

And every conqueror creates a muse.

Edmund Waller (1605-1687): Panegyric on Cromwell.

For his chaste Muse employ'd her heaven-taught lyre

None but the noblest passions to inspire,

Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,

One line which, dying, he could wish to blot.

Lord Lyttleton (1709-1773): Prologue to Thomson's Coriolanus.

Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise.

James Thomson (1700-1748): Hymn. Line 118.

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse.

John Milton (1608-1674): Lycidas. Line 66.

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry V. Prologue.

And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Pleasures of Hope. Part ii. Line 98.

Rise, honest muse! and sing The Man of Ross.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744): Moral Essays. Epistle iii. Line 250.

The best-humour'd man, with the worst-humour'd Muse.

Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774): Postscript.

For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose,

The best good man with the worst-natured muse.

Earl Of Rochester (1647-1680): An allusion to Horace, Satire x. Book i.