The anatomy of melancholy : what it is with all the kinds, causes, symptons, prognostics & several cures of it / In three partitions with their several sections members & subsections philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up by Democritus Junior [Robert Burton] with a satirical preface conducing to the following discourse.

  • Burton, Robert, 1577-1640.
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy : what it is with all the kinds, causes, symptons, prognostics & several cures of it / In three partitions with their several sections members & subsections philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up by Democritus Junior [Robert Burton] with a satirical preface conducing to the following discourse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    juvenile; and no man in his time did surpass him for his ready and dexterous interlarding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or sentences from classic authors; which being then all the fashion in the Univer¬ sity, made his company the more acceptable.” He appears to have been a universal reader of all kinds of books, and availed himself of his multifarious studies in a very extraordinary manner. From the information of Hearne, we learn that John Rouse, the Bodleian librarian, furnished him with choice books for the prosecution of his work. The subject of his labour and amusement, seems to have been adopted from the infirmities of his own habit and constitu¬ tion. Mr. Granger says, “ He composed this book with a view of relieving his own melancholy, but increased it to such a degree, that nothing could make him laugh, but going to the bridge-foot and hearing the ribaldry of the barge¬ men, which rarely failed to throw him into a viUent fit of laughter. Before he was overcome with this horrid disorder, he, in the intervals of his vapours, was esteemed one of the most facetious companions in the University.” His residence was chiefly at Oxford; where, in his chamber in Christ Church College, he departed this life, at or very near the time which he had some years before foretold, from the calculation of his own nativity, and which, says Wood, “ being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper among themselves, that rather than there should be a mistake in the calcula¬ tion, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck.” Whether this suggestion is founded in truth, we have no other evidence than an obscure hint in the epitaph hereafter inserted, which was written by the author himself, a short time before his death. His body, with due solemnity, was buried near that of Dr. Robert Weston, in the north aisle which join? next to the choir of the Cathedral of Christ Church, on the 27th of January, 1639-40. Over his grave was soon after erected a comely monument, on the upper pillar of the said aisle, with his bust, painted to the life. On the right hand is the following calculation of his nativity: