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matched the four basic human temperaments - the phlegmatic,
the choleric, the sanguine and the melancholic. 5 Each
man's natural personality was thought to be determined by
which "humour" was, to a greater or lesser extent, in
excess of the others. Thus, the "balance" of humours would
vary from one person to another, even when each was in a
state of good health. Disease, however, was thought to be
caused by the unnatural excess of some humour, or by un-
natural humours, brought about by "burning" or "adustion".
According to Sanford V. Larkey and Thomas Pyles in
their introduction to An Herbal (1525) (an anonymous com-
pilation, much slighter and less scientific than Turner's
herbal, and popularly known as Banckes' s Herbal from the
printer's colophon) there were many varieties of these
unnatural humours, but they invariably produced "an
unnatural melancholic humour,,6 which was not to be confused
with a normal melancholic disposition.
By the end of the sixteenth century the term became
a convention indicating a particular personality trait in
literary characters. Often such a trait or disposition had
SA. Rupert 81;1..11