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ROBERT BURTON

The Anatomy of Melancholy

Robert Burton was born on February 8, 1576, of an old family, at Lindley, Leicestershire, England; was educated at the free school of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, and at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in 1599 was elected student of Christ Church. In 1616 he was presented with the vicarage of St. Thomas, Oxford, and in 1636 with the rectory of Segrave, in Leicestershire, and kept both these livings until his death. But he lived chiefly in his rooms at Christ Church, Oxford, where, burrowing in the treasures of the Bodleian Library, he elaborated his learned and whimsical book. He died on January 25, 1639, and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral. The "Anatomy of Melancholy" is an enormous compendium of sound sense, sly humour, universal erudition, mediæval science, fantastic conceits, and noble sentiments, arranged in the form of a most methodical treatise, divided, and subdivided again, into sections dealing with every conceivable aspect of this fell disorder. It is an intricate tissue of quotations and allusions, and its interest lies as much in its texture as in its argument. The "Anatomy" consists of an introduction, "Democritus Junior to the Reader," and then of three "Partitions," of which the first treats of the Causes of Melancholy, the second of its Cure, and the third of Love-Melancholy, wherewith is included the Melancholy of Superstition.

I.—Democritus Junior to the Reader

Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antic or personate actor this is that so insolently intrudes upon this common theatre to the world's view, arrogating another man's name; whence he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say. Seek not after that which is hid; if the contents please thee, suppose the man in the moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the author; I would not willingly be known.

I have masked myself under this visard because, like Democritus, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life in the university, penned up most part in my study. Though by my profession a divine, yet, out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsettled mind, I had a great desire to have some smattering in all subjects; which Plato commends as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave of one science, as most do, but to rove abroad, to have an oar in every man's boat, to taste of every dish, and to sip of every cup; which, saith Montaigne, was well performed by Aristotle.

I have little, I want nothing; all my treasure is in Minerva's tower. Though I lead a monastic life, myself my own theatre, I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil, in court and country. Amid the gallantry and misery of the world, jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villainy, subtlety, knavery, candour, and integrity, I rub on in private, left to a solitary life and mine own domestic discontents.

So I call myself Democritus, to assume a little more liberty of speech, or, if you will needs know, for that reason which Hippocrates relates, how, coming to visit him one day, he found Democritus in his garden at Abdera, under a shady bower, with a book on his knees, busy at his study, sometimes writing, sometimes walking. The subject of his book was melancholy and madness. About him lay the carcasses of many several beasts, newly by him cut up and anatomised; not that he did contemn God's creatures, but to find out the seat of this black bile, or melancholy, and how it is engendered in men's bodies, to the intent he might better cure it in himself, and by his writings teach others how to avoid it; which good intent of his Democritus Junior is bold to imitate, and because he left it imperfect and it is now lost, to revive again, prosecute, and finish in this treatise. I seek not applause; I fear good men's censures, and to their favourable acceptance I submit my labours. But as the barking of a dog I contemn those malicious and scurrile obloquies, flouts, calumnies of railers and detractors.