He now regretted the opportunities he had neglected, of marrying one of several women of moderate fortune, who had made advances to him in the zenith of his reputation; and endeavoured, by forcing himself into a lower path of life than any he had hitherto trod, to keep himself afloat, with the portion of some tradesman's daughter, whom he meant to espouse.
— from The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom — Complete by T. (Tobias) Smollett

At the time when Corelli was at the zenith of his reputation, a royal invitation reached him from the Court of Naples, where a great curiosity prevailed to hear his performance.
— from The Violin Some Account of That Leading Instrument and Its Most Eminent Professors, from Its Earliest Date to the Present Time; with Hints to Amateurs, Anecdotes, etc. by George Dubourg

The king is now coming to England,[*] where he will doubtless make a very good impression, since his appearance is dignified, and his manners, as is common among Zulus of high rank, are those of a gentleman.
— from Cetywayo and his White Neighbours Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal by H. Rider (Henry Rider) Haggard

"[4] The French comedy, although Molière was in the zenith of his reputation, appears not to have possessed equal charms for the English monarch.
— from The Dramatic Works of John Dryden, Volume 1 With a Life of the Author by Walter Scott

[z], or had recourse again to the sea, where they exercised piracy, under the command of Sigefert, a Northumbrian.
— from The History of England, Volume I From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 by David Hume

William, to whose diplomacy the peace was owing, as the war had been owing to his indomitable energy, was at the very zenith of his reputation at home and abroad.
— from God and the King by Marjorie Bowen

For [he continues] when the moon is elevated one sign of the zodiac 1295 above the horizon, the sea begins sensibly to swell and cover the shores, until she has attained her meridian; but when that satellite begins to decline, the sea again retires by degrees, until the moon wants merely one sign of the zodiac from setting; it then remains stationary until the moon has set, and also descended one sign of the zodiac below the horizon, when it again rises until she has attained her meridian below the earth; it then retires again until the moon is within one sign of the zodiac of her rising above the horizon, when it remains stationary until the moon has risen one sign of the zodiac above the earth, and then begins to rise as before.
— from The Geography of Strabo, Volume 1 (of 3) Literally Translated, with Notes by Strabo

Wesley was then fifty-seven years of age, in the zenith of his renown as the founder of a sect that had spread itself abroad with amazing power since the day when a handful of young men at Oxford, poor, obscure, unpretending, had met together in each other's rooms to pray and expound the Scriptures, and by their orderly habits, and the method with which they conducted all their spiritual exercises, had won for themselves the name of "methodists."
— from The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival by M. E. (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon