| John Bartlett (1820–1905). Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. 1919. |
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| NUMBER: | 2102 |
| AUTHOR: | Robert Burton (1577–1640) |
| QUOTATION: | Naught so sweet as melancholy. 1 |
| ATTRIBUTION: | Anatomy of Melancholy. The Author’s Abstract. 2 |
| BIOGRAPHY: | Columbia Encyclopedia. |
| | Note 1.
See Fletcher, page 184.
There ’s not a string attuned to mirth
But has its chord in melancholy.
Thomas Hood: Ode to Melancholy. [back] | Note 2.
Dr. Johnson said Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy” was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. And Byron said, “If the reader has patience to go through his volumes, he will be more improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted.”—Works, vol i. p. 144. [back] |
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