‘I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.’

Samuel Johnson, Boswell’s Tour of the Hebrides (16 September 1773)

‘Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Fool’d by these rebel powers that thee array,

Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?’

Shakespeare, Sonnet CXLVI

‘So must pure lovers soules descend

T’affections, and to faculties,

Which sense may reach and apprehend,

Else a great Prince in prison lies.’

John Donne, ‘The Extasie’