Volume 1

The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto.

Burton, Robert

Date:: Reprint 1896 (3 vol set)

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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$pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens to set out our own sterile plots. Castrant alios ut libros suosperse graciles alieno adipe suffarciant (so 1Jovius inveighs): they lard their lean books with the fat of others' works. Ineruditifures,2 &c. A fault that every Writer finds, as I do now, and yet faulty themselves,3 Trium literarum ho?nines, all thieves; they pilfer out of old Writers to stuff up their new Comments, scrape Enniu? dung-hills, and out of4 Democritus pit, as I have done. By which means it comes to pass, 5 that not only libraries 6° shops are fall of our putid papers, but every close-stool and jakes, Scribunt carmina quce legunt cacantes ;6 they serve to put under pies, to7 lap spice in, and keep roast-meat from burning. With us in France, saith 8 Scaliger, every man hath liberty to write, but few ability? Heretofore learning was graced by judicious scholars, but now noble sciences are vilified by base and illiterate scribblers, that either write for vain-glory, need, to get money, or as Parasites to flatter and collogue with some great men, they put out10 burras, quisquiliasque ineptiasque, 11Amongst so many thousand Authors you shall scarce find one, by reading of whom you shall be any whit better, but rather much worse, quibus inficitur potius, qudm perficitur, by which he is rather infected than any way perfected. 12 Qui talia legit, Quid didicit tandem, quid scit nisi somnia, nugas ? So that oftentimes it falls out (which Callimachus taxed of old) i great Book is a great mischief.13 Cardan14 finds fault with French men and Germans, for their scribbling to no purpose, non, inquit, zb edendo deterreo, modo novum aliquid inveniant, he doth not bar :hem to write, so that it be some new invention of their own ; but nq weave the same web still, twist the same rope again and again, 3r if it be a new invention, tis but some bauble or toy which idle fellows write, for as idle fellows to read, and who so cannot invent ? He15 must have a barren wit, that in this scribbling age can forge 1 Prasfat. Hist. [2 Unskilful thieves,] 3 Plautus. [Aul. ii. iv. 46.] 4 EDemo- iriti puteo. 5 Non tarn refertae bibliothecas quam cloacae. [6 Mart. xii. 61, 10.] Et quicquid chartis amicitur ineptis. [Hor. Ep. ii. i. 270.] 8 Epist. ad Patiss. In •egno Franciae omnibus scribendi datur libertas, paucis facultas. 9 Olim literae ob lomines in pretio, nunc sordent ob homines. 10 Aus. [Latino Pacato Depranio, ilio, 5, trifles, rubbish, and trash.] 11 Inter tot mille volumina vix unus a cujus ectione quis melior evadat, immo potius non pejor. 12 Palingenius. [What has myone, who reads such works, learned, what does he know but dreams and trifling hings?] [13 {j.sya &$\lov /msya Kaxw. See Athenaeus, iii. 72.] 14 Lib. 5. de Sap. 5 Sterile oportet esse ingenium quod in hoc scripturientum pruritu, &c.$

The anatomy of melancholy / edited by Rev. A.R. Shilleto.

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