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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![nothing. x Princes show their armies, rich men vaunt their buildings, soldiers their man-hood, and scholars vent their toys, they must read, they must hear whether they will or no. 2 Et quodcunque semel chartis illeverit, omnes Gestiet a furno redeuntes scire lacuque, Et pueros & anus What once is said and writ, all men must know, Old wives and children as they come and go. What a company of Poets hath this year brought out! as Pliny complains to Sossius Senecio ;3 this April every day some or other have recited / What a catalogue of new books all this year, all this age (I say) have our Frank-furt Marts, our domestick Marts, brought out! Twice a year ^proferunt se nova ingenia 6° ostentant, we stretch our wits out, and set them to sale, magno conatu nihil agimus.5 So that, which 6 Gesner much desires, if a speedy refor- mation be not had, by some Princes' Edicts and grave Supervisors* to restrain this liberty, it will run on in infinitum. Quis tarn avidus librorum helluo, who7 can read them ? As already, we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are 8 oppressed with them, 9 our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning. For my part I am one of the number, nos numerus sumus,10 I do not deny it, I have only this of Macrobius to say for myself, Omne meum, nihilmeum, 'tis all mine and none mine. As a good house- wife out of divers fleeces weaves one piece of cloth, a bee gathers wax and honey out of many flowers, and makes a new bundle of all> Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,11 I have laboriously 12 collected this Cento out of divers Writers,, and that sine injuria, I have wronged no authors, but given every man his own; which Hierome so much13 commends in Nepotian, he 1 Cardan, praef. ad Consol. 2 Hor. lib. i, Sat. 4. [36-38.] 3 Epist. lib. 1. [Ep. xiii.] Magnum poetarum proventum annus hie attulit, mense Aprili nullus fere dies- quo non aliquis recitavit. 4 Ibidem. [5 With mighty effort we attain nothing.} 6 Principibus et doctoribus deliberandum relinquo, ut arguantur auctorum furta, et millies repetita tollantur, et temere scribendi libido coerceatur, aliter in infinitum progressura. [7 So greedy a glutton for books that he. ] 8 Onerabuntur ingenia, nemo legendis sufneit. 9 Libris obruimur, oculi legendo manus volitando dolent. Fam. Strada, Momo. Lucretius. [10 Hor. Epp. i. ii. 27.] [n Lucret. iii. 11.] 12 Quicquid ubique bene dictum facio meum, et illud nunc meis ad compendium, nunc ad fidem et auctoritatem alienis exprimo verbis, omnes auctores meos clientes esse arbitror, &c. Sarisburiensis ad Polycrat. prol. 13 In Epitaph. Nep. Illud Cyp. hoc Lact. illud Hilar, est; ita Victorinus, in hunc modum locutus est Arnobius. &c.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0066.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
