a figure of speech, and is this not the poet's usage when he addresses
her? The casual reader is inclined to say, yes, that a belief in the
Muse is indeed dead. It would be absurd on the face of it, he might say,
to expect a belief in this pagan figure to persist after all the rest of
the Greek theogony has become a mere literary device to us. This may not
be a reliable supposition, since as a matter of fact Milton and Dante
impress us as being quite as deeply sincere as Homer, when they call
upon the Muse to aid them in their song. But at any rate everyone is
conscious that such a belief has degenerated before the eighteenth
century. The complacent turner of couplets felt no genuine need for any
Muse but his own keen intelligence; accordingly, though the machinery of
invocation persists in his poetry, it is as purely an introductory
flourish as is the ornamented initial letter of a poem. Indeed, as the
century progresses, not even the pose of serious prayer is always kept
up. John Hughes is perhaps the most persistent and sober intreater of
the Muse whom we find during this period, yet when he compliments the
Muse upon her appearance "at Lucinda's tea-table," [Footnote: See _On
Lucinda's Tea-table_.] one feels that all awe of her has vanished. It
is no wonder that James Thomson, writing verses _On the Death of His
Mother_, should disclaim the artificial aid of the muses, saying that
his own deep feeling was enough to inspire him. As the romantic movement
progressed, it would be easy to show that distaste for the eighteenth
century mannerism resulted in more and more flippant treatment of the
goddesses. Beattie refers to a contemporary's "reptile Muse, swollen
from the sty." [Footnote: See _On a Report of a Monument to a Late
Author_.] Burns alludes to his own Muse as a "tapitless ramfeezled
hizzie," [Footnote: See the _Epistle to Lapraik_.] and sets the
fashion for succeeding writers, who so multiply the original nine that
each poet has an individual muse, a sorry sort of guardian-angel, whom
he is fond of berating for her lack of ability. One never finds a writer