HONORATISSIMO DOMINO,

NON MINYS VIRTUTE SUÂ, QUAM GENERIS SPLENDORE,

ILLVSTRISSIMO,

GEORGIO BERKLEIO,

MILITI DE BALNEO, BARONI DE BERKLEY, MOUBREY, SEGRAVE,

D. DE BRUSE,

DOMINO SUO MUITIS NOMINIBUS OBSERVANDO,

HANC SUAM

MELANCHOLIÆ ANATOMEN,

JAM SEXTO REVISAM, D.D.

DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The work now restored to public notice has had an extraor dinary fate. At the time of its originai publication it obtained a great celebrity, which continued more than half a century. During that period few books were more read, or more deservedly applauded. It was the delight of the learned, the solace of the indolent, and the refuge of the uninformed. It passed through at least eight editions, by which the bookseller, as Wood records, got an estate; and, notwithstanding the objection sometimes opposed against it, of a quaint style, and too great an accumulation of authorities, the fascination of its wit, fancy, and sterling sense, have borne down all censures, and extorted praise from the first writers in the English language. The grave Johnson has praised it in the warmest terms, and the ludicrous STERNE has interwoven many parts of it into his own popular performance. Milton did not disdain to build two of his finest poems on it; and a host of inferior writers have embellished their works with beauties not their own, culled from a performance which they had not the justice even to mention. Change of times, and the frivolity of fashion, suspended, in some degree, that fame which had lasted near a century; and the succeeding generation affected indifference towards an author, who at length was only looked into by the plunderers of literature, the poachers in obscure volumes. The plagiarisms of Tristram Shandy, so successfully brought to light by DR. FERRIAR, at length drew the attention of the public towards a writer, who, though then little known, might, without impeach

ment of modesty, lay claim to every mark of respect; and inquiry proved, beyond a doubt, that the calls of justice had been little attended to by others, as well as the facetious YORICK. WOOD observed, more than a century ago, that several authors had unmercifully stolen matter from Burton without any acknowledg

The time, however, at length arrived, when the merits of the Anatomy of Melancholy were to receive their due praise. The book was again sought for and read, and again it became an applauded performance. Its excellencies once more stood confessed, in the increased price which every copy offered for sale produced; and the increased demand pointed out the necessity of a new edition. This is now presented to the public in a manner not disgraceful to the memory of the author; and the publisher relies with confidence, that so valuable a repository of amusement and information, will continue to hold the rank to which it has been restored, firmly supported by its own merit, and safe from the influence and blight of any future caprices of fashion. To open its valuable mysteries to those who have not had the advantage of a classical education, translations of the countless quotations from ancient writers which occur in the work, are now for the firat time given, and obsolete orthography is in all instances modernised.

MEMOIR

OF THE

AUTHOR.

ROBERT BURTON was the son of Ralph Burton, of an ancient and genteel family at Lindley, in Leicestershire, and was born there on the 8th of February, 1576.* He received the first rudiments of learning at the free school of Sutton Coldfield, in Warwickshire,t from whence he was, at the age of seventeen, in the long vacation, 1593, sent to Brazen Nose College, in the condition of a commoner, where he made a considerable progress in logic and philosophy. In 1599 he was elected student of Christ Church, and, for form sake, was put under the tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. In 1614 he was admitted to the reading of the Sentences, and on the 29th of November, 1616, had the vicarage of St. Thomas, in the west suburb of Oxford, conferred on him by the dean and canons of Christ Church, which, with the rectory of Segrave, in Leicestershire, given to him in the year 1636, by George, Lord Berkeley, he kept, to use the words of the Oxford antiquary, with much ado to his dying day. He seems to have been first beneficed at Walsby, in Lincolnshire, through the munificence of his noble patroness, Frances, Countess Dowager of Exeter, but resigned the same, as he tells us, for some special reasons. At his vicarage he is remarked to have always given the sacrament in wafers. Wood's character of him is, that "he was an exact mathematician, a curious calculator of nativities, a general read scholar, a thorough-paced philologist, and one that understood the surveying of lands well. As he was by many accounted a severe student, a devourer of authors, a melancholy and humorous person; so by others, who knew him well, a person of great honesty, plain dealing and charity. I have heard some of the ancients of Christ Church often say, that his company was very merry, facete, and

His elder brother was William Burton, the Leicestershire antiquary, born 24th August, 1575, educated at Sutton Coldfield, admitted commoner, or gentleman commoner, of Brazen Nose College, 1591; at the Inner Temple, 20th May, 1593; B.A. 22nd June, 1594; and afterwards a barrister and reporter in the Court of Common Pleas. But his natural genius," says Wood, "leading him to the studies of heraldry, genealogies, and antiquities, he became excellent in those obscure and intricate matters; and, look upon him as a gentleman, was accounted, by all that knew him, to be the best of his time for those studies, as may appear by his 'Description of Leicestershire.'" His weak constitution not permitting him to follow business, he retired into the country, and his greatest work, "The Description of Leicestershire," was published in folio, 1622. He died at Falde, after suffering much in the civil war, 6th April, 1645, and was buried in the parish church belonging thereto, called Hanbury.

†This is Wood's account. His will says, Nuneaton; but a passage in this work [vol. 1. p. 395,] mentions Sutton Coldfield: probably he may have been at both schools.