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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![or so many parasangs,1 after him or him, I may be peradventure an ace before thee. Be it therefore as it is, well or ill, I have assayed, put myself upon the stage, I must abide the censure, I may not escape it. It is most true, stilus virum arguit, our style bewrays us, and as2 hunters find their game by the trace, so is a man's genius descried by his works; multb melius ex sermone quam tinea- mentis de moribus hominum judicamus ;3 'twas old Catds rule. I have laid myself open (I know it) in this treatise, turned mine inside outward, I shall be censured, I doubt not, for to say truth with JSrasmus, nihil morosius hominum judiciis, there's naught so peevish as men's judgements, yet this is some comfort, utpalata, sic judicia, our censures are as various as our palates. 4 Tres mihi convivae prope dissentire videntur, Poscentes vario multum diversa palato, &c. [They seem to me to differ like three guests, Whose palates each require different food,] Our writings are as so many dishes, our readers guests, our books ike beauty, that which one admires, another rejects; so are we ipproved as mens fancies are inclined. Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli.6 [The reader's fancy makes the fate of books.] That which is most pleasing to one is amaracum sui* most harsh o another. Quot homines, tot senle?itice^ so many men, so many ninds: that which thou condemnest he commends. 8 Quod petis, id sane est invisum acidumque duobus. [ What you wish, that the other two detest.] 3e respects matter, thou art wholly for words, he loves a loose and ree style, thou art all for neat composition, strong lines, hyper- )oles, allogories; he desires a fine frontispiece, enticing pictures, ;uch as 9 Hieron. Natali the Jesuit hath cut to the Dominicals, to Iraw on the reader's attention, which thou rejectest; that which me admires, another explodes as most absurd & ridiculous. If t be not pointblank to his humour, his method, his conceit, 10 si P A parasang was thirty furlongs.] 2 Ut venatores feram e vestigio impresso, irum scriptiuncula, Lips. [3 We judge much better of a man's character by his onversation than his features. Plutarch, Life of Cato, §7.] 4 Hor. [Epist. ii. 2. 1, 62.] [5 Terentianus Maurus.] [6 Lucret. vi. 973, 974. As odious as marjoram 3 a sow.'*] p Ter. Phorm. 454.] 8 Hor. [Epist. ii. 2. 64.] 9 Antwerp, fol. 1607. ) Muretus.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0069.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
