I have always thought the most efficacious cure for melancholy was to lean on the fence of a sty and watch pigs. Help is at hand, however, for the pig-bereft melancholic seeking to ease their woes. Dan Chambers sent me an extract from an email from his Pa:

In his preface to The Anatomy of Melancholy Burton explains that he wrote the book to rid himself of his own melancholia. This it failed to do; Bishop Kennet wrote that Burton‘s only relief from despondency was to lean over the footbridge at Oxford and listen to the bargemen swearing at each other.