midnight
He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy , that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing . Turning to one of his favourite passages -- `` A Consolatory Digression , Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents '' -- he was happily lost to all ticking of the clock , retaining only such bodily consciousness as was needful to dump , fill , and relight his pipe from time to time . Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious this-and-that of trade . Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings . To such tried companions as Robert Burton and George Herbert he was wont to exonerate his spirit . It used to amuse him to think of Burton , the lonely Oxford scholar , writing that vast book to `` rectify '' his own melancholy . By and by , turning over the musty old pages , he came to the following , on Sleep -- The fittest time is two or three hours after supper , whenas the meat is now settled at the bottom of the stomach , and 't is good to lie on the right side first , because at that site the liver doth rest under the stomach , not molesting any way , but heating him as a fire doth a kettle , that is put to it .