ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, WHAT IT IS, WITH ALL THE KINDS, CAUSES, SYMPTOMS, PROGNOSTICS, AND SEVERAL CURES OF IT. IN THREE PARTITIONS. WITH THEIR SEVERAL SECTIONS, MEMBERS, AND SUBSECTIONS, PHILOSOPHICALLY, MEDICALLY, BY DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR. WITH A SATIRICAL PREFACE, CONDUCING TO THE FOLLOWING DISCOURSE. A New Edition, CORRECTED, AND ENRICHED BY TRANSLATIONS OF THE NUMEROUS CLASSICAL EXTRACTS. BY DEMOCRITUS MINOR. TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN ACCOUNT OF THE AUTHOR. Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci. He that joins instruction with delight, PHILADELPHIA: J. W. MOORE, 193 CHESTNUT STREET. NEW YORK: JOHN WILEY, 161 BROADWAY. HONORATISSIMO DOMINO, NON MINVS VIRTUTE SUÂ, QUAM GENERIS SPLENDORE, ILLVSTRISSIMO, GEORGIO BERKLEIO, MILITI DE BALNEO, BARONI DE BERKLEY, MOUBREY, SEGRAVE, D. DE BRUSE, DOMINO SUO MULTIS NOMINIBUS OBSERVANDO, HANC SUAM MEI ANCHOLIE ANATOMEN, JAM SEXTO REVISAM, D.D. DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE LAST LONDON EDITION. THE work now restored to public notice has had an extraordinary fate. At the time of its original publication it obtained a great celebrity, which continued more than half a century. During that period few books were more read, or more descrvedly 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 impeachment 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 acknowledgment. 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 first time given, and obsolete orthography is in all instances modernized. 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,† 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 considerable progress in logic and philosophy. In 1599 he was elected student of Christ Church, and, for form's 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 juvenile; * 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. 22d 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 [see fol. 304,] mentions Sutton Coldfield: probably he may have been at both schools. |