The Anatomy of Melancholy

How shall I commemorate, among the others, Sir Thomas Bodley, Otho Nicholson, and the Right Reverend John Williams, Lord Bishop of Lincoln? Besides his many other pious works, and the libraries at St John’s College, Cambridge, and at Westminster, he now also has a library at Lincoln in progress—a noble example for all incorporated towns and cities to follow. “How shall I commemorate you, most illustrious man, and with what praises?” But back to my task.

Whoever is overwhelmed by solitude, carried away by pleasurable melancholy and idle fancies, at a loss how to spend his time for lack of employment, or tormented by worldly cares—I can prescribe no better remedy for him than study: to settle himself to learning some art or science.

Always provided that his illness does not arise from excessive study: in that case he adds fuel to the fire, and nothing could be more harmful. Let him take care not to overstrain his mind and turn himself into a skeleton; or to become one of those lovesick readers who read nothing but plays, idle poems, jests, Amadis of Gaul, The Knight of the Sun, The Seven Champions, Palmerin de Oliva, Huon of Bordeaux, and the like. Such people often end up as mad as Don Quixote.

Study is prescribed only for those who are otherwise idle, troubled in mind, or swept away by empty thoughts and imaginings, to draw their thoughts elsewhere and turn their continual reflections in another direction—although a change of study, or a serious subject, would do the former readers no harm. Nothing is better than study in such a case: “Let them always learn something by heart,” says Piso. Let them memorize something, copy it out, translate it, and so forth.

Read the Scriptures. Hyperius, in book 1 of On the Daily Reading of Scripture, folio 77, holds this beneficial in itself: the mind is thereby lifted above all worldly cares and enjoys great peace and tranquillity. For, as Augustine aptly puts it, it is “the knowledge of knowledges, sweeter than any honey, more pleasing than any bread, more cheering than any wine.” It is the best nepenthe, the surest restorative, the sweetest medicine for changing one’s condition, an immediate diversion.

For, as Chrysostom aptly adds, branches and leaves woven together for cattle to stand beneath in the summer heat do not refresh them with their welcome shade as much as reading Scripture refreshes and comforts a distressed soul in sorrow and affliction.

Paul says, “Pray continually.” “What food does for the body, reading does for the soul,” says Seneca: reading is to the soul what food is to the body. Leisure without books is another hell, and burial alive.