Volume 1

The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prgnostics, and several cures of it. In three partitions : with their several sections, members, and subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened and cut up / by Democritus Junior.

  • Burton, Robert, 1577-1640.
Date:
1813
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds, causes, symptomes, prgnostics, and several cures of it. In three partitions : with their several sections, members, and subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened and cut up / by Democritus Junior. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    The following testimonies of various authors, will serve to shew the estimation in which this work has been held. ^ The Anatomy of Melancholy, wlierein tlie author hath piled up variety of much excellent learning. Scarce any book of philology in our land hath, in so short a time, passed so many editions. Fuller's fVorihies, fol. 16. 'Tis a book so full of variety of reading, that gentlemen who have lost their time, and are put to a push for invention, may furnish themselves whh matter for common or scholastical discourse and vvriting. WoodCs Atlientz Oxonienses, vol. i. p. 628. 2d edit. If you never saw Burton upon Melancholy, printed 1676, I pray look into it, and read the ninth page of his Pre- face, Democrltus to the Reader, There is something there which touches the point we are upon; but I mention tiie author to you, as the pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of sterling sense. The wits of Queen Anne's reign, and the beginning of George the 1st. were not a little beholden to him. Archbishop Herring's Letters, 12mo. 1777' P- 149. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he (Dr. Johnson) said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1. p. 580. Bvo. edit. « Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a valuable book, said Dr. Johnson, It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation.—But there is great spirit and great power in what Burton says when he writes from his own mind. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 325 It will be no detraction from the powers of Milton's ori- ginal genius and invention, to remark, that he seems to have borrowed the subject of L'Allegro and 77 Pei^seroso, together with some particular thoughts, expressions, and rhymes, more especially the idea of a contrast between these two dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of Burton's Anaiomie of Melancholy, entitled, The Author's Ab- stract of Melancholy; or, A Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain. Here Pain is Melancholy. It was written, as I con- jecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for ab- stracting and citing as much of this poem as will be sufficient