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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![felony in this kind, habes confitentem reum, I am content to be pressed with the rest. ,rTis most true, tenet insanabile multos scribendi cacoethes? and2 there is no end of writing of books, as the Wise-man found of old, in this3 scribbling age especially, wherein 4 the number of books is without number, (as a worthy man saith) presses be oppressed, & out of an itching humor, that every man hath to show himself,5 desirous of fame and honor (scribimus indocti doctique*—) he will write no matter what, & scrape together it boots not whence. 7 Bewitched with this desire of fame, etiam mediis in morbis, to the disparagement of their health, & scarce able to hold a pen, they must say something, 6° 8 get themselves a name, saith Scaliger, though it be to the down-fall and ruin of many others. To be counted writers, scriptores ut salutentur, to be thought and held Polymaths & Polyhistors, apud imperitum vulgus ob ventosce nomen artis, to get a paper kingdom : nulla spe qucestus sed ampld famce? in this precipitate ambitious age, nunc ut est sceculum, inter immaturam eruditionem ambitiosum & prceceps ('tis Scaliger* s10 censure) and they that are scarce auditors, vix auditores, must be masters & teachers, before they be capable & fit hearers. They will rush into all learning, togatam, armatam, divine, human authors, rake over all Indexes & Pamphlets for notes, as our merchants do strange havens for traffick, write great Tomes, cum non sint revera doctiores, sed loquaciores, when as they are not thereby better scholars, but greater praters. They commonly pretend publick good, but, as Gesner11 observes, 'tis pride and vanity that eggs them on, no news or ought worthy of note, but the same in other terms. Ne feriarentur fortasse typographic vel ideo scribendum est aliquid ut se vixisse testentur.12 As Apothecaries we make new mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another; and as those old Romans robbed all the cities of the world, to set out their bad sited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men's wits, p Juv. vii. 51, 52. Many are possessed by an incurable itch to write.] 2 Eccle- siastes, [xii. 12.] 3 Libros Eunuchi gignunt, steriles pariunt. 4 D. King praefat. lect. Jonas, the late Right Reverend Lord Bp. of London. [1611-1621.] 5 Homines famelici gloriae ad ostentationem eruditionis undique congerunt. Buchananus. [6 Hor. Epist. ii. 1. 117. We write learned and unlearned.] 7 Effascinati etiam laudis amore, &c. Justus Baronius. 8 Ex minis alien se existimationis sibi gradum ad famam struunt. [9 From no hope of gain but great hope of fame.] 10 Exercit. 288. 11 Omnes sibi famam quaerunt et quovis modo in orbem spargi contendunt, ut novae alicujus rei habeantur auctores. Praef. biblioth. [12 They turn authors lest peradventure the printers should have a holiday, or they must write some- thing to prove they have lived ]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0064.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
