melancholy🔊

Melancholy, cold and dry, thick, black, and sour, […] is a bridle to the other two hot humours, blood and choler, preserving them in the blood, and nourishing the bones.

"The ancients referred melancholy to the mind, the moderns make it matter of digestion—to either case my plan applies," said Lady Mandeville.

For, melancholy ever reigns / Delighted in the sylvan scenes / With scientifick light; / While Dian, huntress of the vales, / Seeks lulling sounds and fanning gales, / Though wrapt from mortal sight.

I have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation; nor the musician’s, which is fantastical; nor the courtier’s, which is proud; nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious; nor the lawyer’s, which is politic; nor the lady’s, which is nice; nor the lover’s, which is all these; but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples, extracted from many objects, and, indeed, the sundry contemplation of my travels; in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.