an expert to tell, after reading this, whence Milton
drew the suggestion of 'L'Allegro' and 'Il Penseroso.'

CONCLUSIONS AS TO MELANCHOLY

Generally thus much we may conclude of melancholy: that it is most
pleasant at first, I say, _mentis gratissimus error_, a most delightsome
humor, to be alone, dwell alone, walk alone, meditate, lie in bed whole
days, dreaming awake as it were, and frame a thousand phantastical
imaginations unto themselves. They are never better pleased than when
they are so doing; they are in Paradise for the time, and cannot well
endure to be interrupt; with him in the Poet:--

"--pol! me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait:"

you have undone him, he complains, if you trouble him: tell him what
inconvenience will follow, what will be the event, all is one, _canis ad
vomitum_, 'tis so pleasant he cannot refrain. He may thus continue
peradventure many years by reason of a strong temperature, or some
mixture of business, which may divert his cogitations: but at the last
_laesa imaginatio_, his phantasy is crazed, & now habituated to such
toys, cannot but work still like a fate; the Scene alters upon a sudden;
Fear and Sorrow supplant those pleasing thoughts, suspicion, discontent,
and perpetual anxiety succeed in their places; so little by little, by
that shoeing-horn of idleness, and voluntary solitariness, Melancholy
this feral fiend is drawn on, _et quantum vertice ad auras AEthereas,
tantum radice in Tartara tendit_; "extending up, by its branches, so far
towards Heaven, as, by its roots, it does down towards Tartarus;" it was
not so delicious at first, as now it is bitter and harsh: a cankered
soul macerated with cares and discontents, _taedium vitae_, impatience,
agony, inconstancy, irresolution, precipitate them unto unspeakable
miseries. They cannot endure company, light, or life itself, some unfit
for action, and the like. Their bodies are lean and dried up, withered,
ugly; their looks harsh, very dull, and their souls tormented, as they
are more or less entangled, as the humor hath been intended, or
according to the continuance of time they have been troubled.

To discern all which symptoms the better, _Rhasis_ the _Arabian_ makes
three degrees of them. The first is _falsa cogitatio_, false conceits
and idle thoughts: to misconstrue and amplify, aggravating everything
they conceive or fear: the second is _falso cogitatio loqui_, to talk to
themselves, or to use inarticulate