melancholy vs merriment

melancholy

noun

  • Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature. 

  • Black bile, formerly thought to be one of the four "cardinal humours" of animal bodies. 

adj

  • Affected with great sadness or depression. 

merriment

noun

  • A state of enjoyable exuberance. 

  • Playful fun. 

How often have the words melancholy and merriment occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )