Volume 1

The anatomy of melancholy / edited by the Rev. A.R. Shilleto ; with an introduction by A.H. Bullen.

  • Robert Burton
Date:
1903-1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The anatomy of melancholy / edited by the Rev. A.R. Shilleto ; with an introduction by A.H. Bullen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    51/550 page 11
    DEMOCRITUS JUNIOR TO THE READER / ENTLE Reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to \y_jr know what antick or personate actor this is, that so inso- lently intrudes upon this common theatre to the world’s view, arrogating another man’s name, whence he is, why he doth it, and what he hath to say. Although, as 4he said, Primum si noluero, non respondebo, quis coacturus est ? I am a free man born, and may choose whether I will tell, who can compel me ? If I be urged, I will as readily reply as that Egyptian in * Plutarch, when a curious fellow would needs know what he had in his basket, Quum vides velatam, quid inquiris in rem absconditam ? It was therefore covered, because he should not know what was in it. Seek not after that which is hid; if the contents please thee, *and be for thy . use, suppose the Man in the Moon, or whom thou wilt, to be the Author; I would not willingly be known. Yet in some sort to ; give thee satisfaction, which is more than I need, I will shew a ■(reason, both of this usurped name, title, and subject. And first of the name of Democritus; lest any man by reason of it should be deceived, expecting a pasquil, a satire, some ridiculous treatise (as I myself should have done) some prodigious tenent, or paradox of the Earth’s motion, of infinite Worlds, in infinito vacuo, ex for- tuity atomorum collisione, in an infinite waste, so caused by an accidental collision of Motes in the Sun, all which Democritus held, Epicurus and their Master Leucippus of old maintained, and are lately revived by Copernicus, Brunus, and some others. Be- sides it hath been always an ordinary custom, as4 Gellius observes, for later Writers and impostors, to broach many absurd a?id insolent -fictions, under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to 1 Seneca in ludo in mortem Claudii Caesaris. [Apocolocyntosis, Initium.] 2 Lib. ie Curiositate. [$ iii]. 3 Mod6 hsec tibi usui sint, quemvis auctorem fingito. Wecker. 1 kib* io. c. i2. Multa k mal6 feriatis in Democriti nomine commenta data, lobilitatis auctoritatisque ejus perfugio utentibus.
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