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)
69/581 page 29
![rile pamphlet is welcome to our mercenary Stationers in English, they print all, cuduntque libellos In quorum foliis vix simia nuda cacaret; but in Latin they will not deal; which is one of the reasons ~L Nicholas Car, in his oration of the paucity of English writers, gives, that so many flourishing wits are smothered in oblivion, lie dead and buried in this our nation. Another main fault is, that I have not revised the copy, and amended the style, which now flows remissly, as it was first conceived, but my leisure would not permit. Feci nec quodpotui, necquod volui, I confess it is neither as I would, nor as it should be. 2 Cum relego scripsisse pudet, quia plurima cerno Me quoque quae fuerant judice digna lini. When I peruse this tract which I have writ, I am abash'd, and much I hold unfit. Et quod gravissimuni* in the matter itself, many things I disallow at this present, which when I writ,4 Non eadem est cetas, non mens ; 5 I would willingly retract much, &c, but 'tis too late, I can only crave pardon now for what is amiss. I might indeed (had I wisely done) have observed that precept of the poet, nonumque prematur in annum,6 and have taken more care : or as Alexander the Physician would have done by Lapis Lazuli, fifty times washed before it be used, I should have revised, corrected, and amended this tract; but I had not as (I said) that happy leisure, no amanuenses or assistants. Pancrates in 1Lucian, wanting a servant as he went from Memphis to Coptos in Egypt, took a door-bar, and after some superstitious words pronounced {Eucrates the relator was then present) made it stand up like a serving-man, fetch him water, turn the spit, serve in supper, and what work he would besides; and when he had done that service he desired, turn'd his man to a stick again. I have no such skill to make new men at my pleasure, or means 1 Aut artis inscii aut quaestui magis quam literis student, hab. Cantab, et Lond. Excus. 1676. 2 Ovid. [Pont. 1. 5. 15, 16.] [3 And what is most important.] 4 Hor. [Epp. i. i. 4.] [5 'Twas in my salad days, when I was green, Not ripe, in judgement.] [6 Hor. De Arte Poetica, 388. Let a book wait 9 years, ere it be printed.] ' Philopseudes, [§ 35. ] Accepto pessulo, quum carmen quoddam dixisseH effecit ut ambularet, aquam hauriret, urnam pararet, &c.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21270818_001_0073.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
