Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Critical Essay by Oliver Wendell Holmes

SOURCE: Holmes, Oliver Wendell. “Pillow-Smoothing Authors, With a Prelude on Night-Caps, and Comments on an Old Writer.” The Atlantic Monthly LI, No. cccvi (April 1883): 457-64.

In the following essay, Holmes discusses the influence of The Anatomy of Melancholy on English literature and comments on the massive breadth of the treatise.

Cotton Mather says of our famous and excellent John Cotton, “the Father and Glory of Boston,” as he calls him, that, “being asked why in his Latter Days he indulged Nocturnal Studies more than formerly, he pleasantly replied, Because I love to sweeten my mouth with a piece of Calvin before I go to sleep.” Hot in the mouth, rather than sweet, we of to-day might think his piece of Calvin; but as a good many “night-caps” are both hot and sweet as well as strong, we need not quarrel with the worthy minister who has been with the...
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