The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds auses, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it, in three partitions, with their severall sections, members, & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [i.e. Robert Burton]. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse.

Robert Burton

Date:: 1676

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy : what it is, with all the kinds auses, symptomes, prognostickes, & seuerall cures of it, in three partitions, with their severall sections, members, & subsections, philosophically, medicinally, historically opened & cut up / By Democritus Junior [i.e. Robert Burton]. With a satyricall preface conducing to the following discourse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Cover
Title Page
Cover

27/520 page 9

a Et indg catena qua- dam fit, qu* hare- dis etiam ligat. Car¬ dan. Ben- fius. b Malle fe helium cum magnoprin- cipe gerere, quamcum uno txfiru- trum men¬ dicant i urn wdine. c Hor.epod. lib. od. 7. d EpilL%6. ad Cafulam presb. e Lib. 12. cap.i. Mu- tuns nafci, & omni fcientia egere fatius fuijfet, quam fic in propriam pemiciem Ivfanire. f Infielix mortalitss inutilibus quaftioni- bus ac di- jceptationi- bus vitam traducimus, nature principes * thefauros, in quibus graviffima moi'borum medicin(e coUocata pint, inte¬ rim inta- £los relin. quimus. Nec ipfifo- lum relin- quimus, fed alios prohibemus, impedimus, condemna- mus, luii- briifque afiicimus. my felf and others; but that at this time I was fatally driven upon this rock of melancholy, and carried away by this by-ftream, which as a fillet, is dedufted from the main chanel of my ftudies^ in which I have pleafed and bufied my felf-at idle hours, as a fubjed moft neceflary and commodious. Not that I prefer it before Divinity,which I do acknowledge to he the Queen of profeflions, and to which all the reft are as handmaids, but that in Divinity I faw no fuch great need. For had I written pofitively, there be fo many books in that kind, fo many commentators, treatifes, pamphlets, expofiti- ons, fermons, that whole teems of Oxen cannot draw them •, and had I been as forward and am¬ bitious as fome others, I might have haply printed a fermun at Pads Crofs, a fermon in - St. Manes Oxon, a fermon in Chrift-QoHrch, or a fermon before the right honourable, right reverend, a fermon before the right wor- fhipful, a fermon in latine, in englifti, a fer¬ mon with a name, a fermon without, a fer¬ mon, a fermon, &c. But I have been everas defirous to fupprefs my labours in this kind, as others have been to prefs and publifti theirs. To have written in controverfie, had been to cut off an Hydras head, ^ Its htemge¬ nerate one begets another, fo many duplicati¬ ons, triplications, and fwarms of queftions, In ■facro hello hoc quod ftiti mnerone agitiir, that having once begun^ I ftiould never make an end. One had much better, as ^ Alexander the fixth Pope, long fince obferved, provoke a great prince than a begging Friary a Je- fuit, or a feminary Prieft, I will add, for inex- pugnahile genus hoc hominutny they are an irrefragable fociety, they muft and will have the laft word ^ and that with fuch eagernefs, impudence, abominable lying, falfifying, and bitternefs in their queftions they proceed, that as ® he faid, furorne cscttSy an rapit vis atrioYy an cdpay reffonfam date ? Blind fury, or errour, or ralhnefs, or what it is that eggs them, I know not, I am fure many times, which ^ Auftin perceived long fince, tempeflate contentioniSy ferenitas chantatis obnuhilatary with this terapeft of contention, the ferenity of charity is over-clouded, and there be too many fpirits conjured up already in this kind in all fciences,and more than we. can tell how to lay, which do fo furioully rage, and keep fuch a racket, that as ® Fahitu faid, It had been much better for fome of them to have been born dumby and altogether illiteratCythanfo far to dote to their own defiruHion, . At melius fHerat non feriberey namqtie tacere Tutum femper erity -- Tis a general ftult, fo Severinm the T>ane com¬ plains f in phyfick, unhappy men as we arey we fpend our dates in unprofitable quefiions and difputationSy intricate fubtilties, de land ca- prindy about moonfhine in the water, leaving in the mean time thofe chiefefi treafures of na¬ ture untouchedy wherein the befi medicines for all manner of difeafes are to be foundy and do not only neglefl them our felves, but hinder, condemny forbid and fcofi at etherSy that are willing to enquire after them, Ihefe motives at this prefent have induced me to make choice of this medicinal fubjed. ' ^ If any phyfician in the mean time ftialt infer ' Ke futor ultra crepidam, and find himfeU grieved-ihjt I have intruded into his profeftioi]i, I will tell him in brief, Ido nototherwife by them,than they do by us. If it be for their advantage, I know many of their fed which have taken orders, in hope of a benefice, ’tis a common tranfition, and why may not a melan¬ choly divine,thatcanget nothing but by fimony, profefs phyfick } Drufianus an Italian ( Cru- fianuSy but corruptly, Trithemius calls him J j ■ Sbecaufe he was not fortunate in his pratlicey^ff:-^ forfoolChis profefftony and writ afterwards in for- Divinity, ■ Marcilius Ficinus was femel tiinatusef- fmuly a prieft and a phyfician at once, and hfit, wdici- T. Linacer in his old age took orders. The Jefuits profefs both at this time, divers of Irdinibus them permijfu fuperiorumy Chirurgions, pan- initiatus ders, bawds, and midwives, (^c. Many ^qqx Countrey-vicars for want of other means, are driven to their ftiifts • to turn mounieb'jLukSy quackfalvers, tmpiricks,and if our greedy pa- Bibliothe- trons hold us to fuch hard conditions, as com-.. monly they do, they will make moft of us work.at fome trade, zsPauL did, at laft turn taskers, malfters, coftermongers, grafiers, fell ale as fome have done, or worfe; Howfoe- ver in undertaking this task, I hope I fhall commit no great errour or indecorum, if all be confidered aright, I can vindicate ray felf with Georgius ’BraunuSy and Hieronymus He- mingiusf thofe two learned Divines j who (to ^ borrow a line or two of mine ^ elder brother ) preface drawn by a natural UvOy the one of piUures tohis de- arid mapSy profpefiives and chorographical de- lightSy writ that ample theatre of - the other to the fiudy of genealogiesy penned thca- ed ac lon- trum genealogicum. Or elk I can excufe my don by w. ftudies with ^ Leffius the fefuit in like cafe, It is a difeafe of the foul, on which I am tre^, and as much appertaining to a Divine 1622*. as to a phyfician • and who knows not what an k m Hygi-- agreement there is betwixt thefe two profefli- ons? A good Divine either is or ought to a good phyfician, a fpiritual phyfician at leaft, aliens, as our Saviour calls himfelf, and was indeed, iJHat. 4. 23. Luke 5.18. Lukej. 8. 1 hey differ but in objed, the one of the body, the other of the foul, and ufe divers medicines io ani- one amends animam per corpus^ the mx. cure . — - , , . other corpus per animamy as ^ our Regius Pro- feffour of phyfick well informed us in a learn- ed ledure of his not long fince. One helps the vices andpaflionsof the foul, anger, lull, defperaiion, pride, prefumption, &c. by ap¬ plying that fpiritual phyfick •, as the other ufe proper remedies in bodily difeafes. Now this being a common infirmity of body and foul, and fuch a one that hath as much need of fpi¬ ritual as a corporal cure, I could not find a fitter task to bufic my felf about, a more ap- pofite theam, fo neceffary, fo 'commodious^ and generally concerning all forts of men, that Ihould fo equally participate of both, and C ~ require

Licence and re-use

Contents