Volume 1
The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto.
- Burton, Robert
- Date:
- Reprint 1896 (3 vol set)
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![great student; and to the intent he might better contemplate, 11 find it related by some, that he put out his eys, and was in his old age voluntarily blind, yet saw more than all Greece besides, and 2writ of every subject, Nihil in toto opifcio natures de quo non scripsit.3 A man of an excellent wit, profound conceit; and to attain knowledge the better in his younger years, he travelled to Egypt and * Athens, to confer with learned men, 6 admired of some, despised of others. After a wandering life, he setled at Abdera, a town in Thrace, and was sent for thither to be their Law-maker, Recorder or Town-clerk as some will; or as others, he was there bred and born. Howsoever it was, there he lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholy betaking himself to his studies, and a private life, 6 saving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven,1 and laugh heartily at such variety of ridiculous objects, which there he saiv. Such a one was Democritus. But in the mean time, how doth this concern me, or upon what reference do I usurp his habit ? I confess indeed that to compare my self unto him for ought I have yet said, were both impudency and arrogancy, I do not presume to make any parallel, Antistat mi hi millibus trecentist * parvus sum, nullus sum, altum nec spiro, nec spero.10 Yet thus much I will say of myself, & that I hope with- out all suspicion of pride, or self-conceit, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life, mihi 6° musis11 in the University as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, ad se?iectam fer%,12 to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study. For I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing College of Europe, 13 augustissimo collegio, and can brag with uJovius, almost, in ea luce domicilii Vaticani, totius orbis celeberrimi, per 37 annos multa opportunaque didici; for 30 years I have continued (having the use of as good 15Libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loth, either by living 1 Sabellicus, exempl., lib. 10. Oculis se privavit, ut melius contemplationi operam daret, sublimi vir ingenio, profundae cogitationis, &c. 2 Naturalia, moralia, mathematica, liberales disciplinas, artiumque omnium peritiam callebat. 3 [Nothing in all nature's working is there of which he has not written.] 4 Veni Athenas, et nemo me novit. 5 Idem contemptui et admirationi habitus. 6 Solebat ad portam ambulare, et inde, &c. Hip. Ep. Damag. 7 Perpetuo risu pulmonem agitare sole- bat Democritus. Juv. Sat. [x. 33, 34.] [~8 Catullus, ix. 2.] 9 Non sum dignus praestare matellam. Mart. [x. 11. 3.] [10 He excels me in 300,000 ways, I am an insignificant person, a nobody, I have neither high aims nor hopes.] f11 To myself and letters.] [12 To old age almost.] 13 Christ Church in Oxford. 14 Praefat. hist. 15 Keeper of our college library, lately revived by Otho Nicolson. Esquire*](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
