Something given that way. The Lover's Progress. Act i. Sc. 1. Deeds, not words.1 Act iii. Sc. 4. ROBERT BURTON. 1576-1640. Naught so sweet as melancholy." Anatomy of Melancholy. The Author's Abstract. I would help others, out of a fellow-feeling.* Democritus to the Reader. They lard their lean books with the fat of others' works.5 Ibid. We can say nothing but what hath been said.® Our poets steal from Homer. Our story-dressers do as much; he that comes last is commonly best. Ibid. I say with Didacus Stella, a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see farther than a giant him self." 1 Deeds, not words. BUTLER: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 867. 2 See Fletcher, page 184. There's not a string attuned to mirth But has its chord in melancholy. HOOD: Ode to Melancholy. Ibid. 8 Dr. Johnson said Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" was the only will be more book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise. And Byron said, "If the reader has patience to go through his volumes, he improved for literary conversation than by the perusal of any twenty other works with which I am acquainted." — Works, vol. i. p. 144. A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind. — GARRICK : Prologue on quitting the stage. Non ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco (Being not unacquainted with woe, I learn to help the unfortunate).- VIRGIL: Eneid, lib. i. 630. 5 See Shakespeare, page 84. Nihil dictum quod non dictum prius (There is nothing said which has not been said before).- TERENCE: Eunuchus, Prol. 10. A dwarf on a giant's shoulders sees farther of the two. - Herbert : Jacula Prudentum. A dwarf sees farther than the giant when he has the giant's shoulders to mount on. —COLERIDGE: The Friend, sect. i. essay viii. Pigmæi gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident (Pig. mies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves). - Didacus Stella in Lucan, 10, tom. ii. It is most true, stylus virum arguit, wrays us.1 our style be Anatomy of Melancholy. Democritus to the Reader. I had not time to lick it into form, as a bear doth her young ones.2 Ibid. As that great captain, Ziska, would have a drum made of his skin when he was dead, because he thought the very noise of it would put his enemies to flight. Ibid. Like the watermen that row one way and look an other." Ibid. Smile with an intent to do mischief, or cozen him whom he salutes.* Him that makes shoes go barefoot himself." Rob Peter, and pay Paul." Penny wise, pound foolish. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid Ibid. Ibid. Women wear the breeches. Like Esop's fox, when he had lost his tail, would have all his fellow foxes cut off theirs." Ibid. Our wrangling lawyers. . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell. Ibid. Hannibal, as he had mighty virtues, so had he many vices; he had two distinct persons in him. Ibid. 1 Le style est l'homme même (The style is the man himself). - Buffon: Discours de Réception (Recueil de l'Académie, 1750). 2 Arts and sciences are not cast in a mould, but are formed and perfected by degrees, by often handling and polishing, as bears leisurely lick their cubs into form. MONTAIGNE: Apology for Raimond Sebond, book ii. chap. xii. 3 Like watermen who look astern while they row the boat ahead. - PLUTARCH: Whether 't was rightfully said, Live concealed. See Heywood, page 14. RABELAIS: book i. chap. xi. 7 ESOP: Fables, book v. fable v. 8 He left a corsair's name to other times, BYRON The Corsair, canto iii. stanza 24. Carcasses bleed at the sight of the murderer. Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 1, Memb. 2, Subsect. 5. Every man hath a good and a bad angel attending on him in particular, all his life long.1 Sect. 2, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2. [Witches] steal young children out of their cradles, ministerio dæmonum, and put deformed in their rooms, which we call changelings. Can build castles in the air.2 Subsect. 3. Ibid. Joh. Mayor, in the first book of his "History of Scotland," contends much for the wholesomeness of oaten bread; it was objected to him, then living at Paris, that his countrymen fed on oats and base grain. And yet Wecker out of Galen calls it horse-meat, and fitter juments than men to feed on.3 Memb. 2, Subsect. 1. Cookery is become an art, a noble science; cooks are gentlemen. Subsect. 2. As much valour is to be found in feasting as in fight ing, and some of our city captains and carpet knights will make this good, and prove it.* Ibid. No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.5 Idleness is an appendix to nobility. Subsect. 3. Subsect. 6. Why doth one man's yawning make another yawn? 1 See Fletcher, page 183. Memb. 3, Subsect. 2. 2 "Castles in the air," -Montaigne, Sir Philip Sidney, Massinger, Sir Thomas Browne, Giles Fletcher, George Herbert, Dean Swift, Broome, Fielding, Cibber, Churchill, Shenstone, and Lloyd. 8 Oats, -a grain which is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. - SAMUEL JOHNSON: Dictionary of the English Language. Carpet knights are men who are by the prince's grace and favour made knights at home. . . . They are called carpet knights because they receive their honours in the court and upon carpets. - MARKHAM: Booke of Hon our (1625). "Carpet knights," - Du Bartas (ed. 1621), p. 311. A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better. Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 6. They do not live but linger. Subsect. 10. [Diseases] crucify the soul of man, attenuate our bodies, dry them, wither them, shrivel them up like old apples, make them so many anatomies.1 Ibid. [Desire] is a perpetual rack, or horsemill, according to Austin, still going round as in a ring. Subsect. 11. [The rich] are indeed rather possessed by their money than possessors. Subsect. 12. Like a hog, or dog in the manger, he doth only keep it because it shall do nobody else good, hurting himself and others. Ibid. Were it not that they are loath to lay out money on a rope, they would be hanged forthwith, and sometimes die to save charges. A mere madness, to live like a wretch and die rich. Ibid. Ibid. I may not here omit those two main plagues and com mon dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together." All our geese are swans. Subsect. 13. Subsect. 14. Though they [philosophers] write contemptu gloriæ, yet as Hieron observes, they will put their names to their books. Ibid. They are proud in humility; proud in that they are not proud.3 1 See Shakespeare, page 50. 2 Qui vino indulget, quemque alea decoquit, ille In venerem putret Subsect. 14. (He who is given to drink, and whom the dice are despoiling, is the one who rots away in sexual vice). - PERSIUS: Satires, satire v. We can make majors and officers every year, but not scholars; kings can invest knights and barons, as Sigismund the emperor confessed.1 Anatomy of Melancholy. Part i. Sect. 2, Memb. 3, Subsect. 15. Hinc quam sic calamus sævior ense, patet. The pen worse than the sword.2 Memb. 4, Subsect. 4. Homer himself must beg if he want means, and as by report sometimes he did " go. from door to door and sing ballads, with a company of boys about him.” 3 See one Subsect. 6. promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.1 Subsect. 7. Felix Plater notes of some young physicians, that study to cure diseases, catch them themselves, will be sick, and appropriate all symptoms they find related of others to their own persons. Sect. 3, Memb. 1, Subsect. 2. Aristotle said melancholy men of all others are most witty. Subsect. 3. Like him in Æsop, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel. Part ii. Sect. 1, Memb. 2. Fabricius finds certain spots and clouds in the sun. Sect. 2, Memb. 3. 1 When Abraham Lincoln heard of the death of a private, he said he was sorry it was not a general: "I could make more of them." 2 Tant la plume a eu sous le roi d'avantage sur l'épée (So far had the pen under the king the superiority over the sword). SAINT SIMON: Mémoires, vol. iii. p. 517 (1702), ed. 1856. The pen act ii. sc. 2. is mightier than the sword. - BULWER LYTTON: Richelieu, Seven wealthy towns contend for Homer dead, ANONYMOUS. Great Homer's birthplace seven rival cities claim, Too mighty such monopoly of Fame. THOMAS SEWARD: On Shakespeare's Monument at Seven cities warred for Homer being dead; Who living had no roofe to shrowd his head. THOMAS HEYWOOD: Hierarchie of the Blessed Angells. A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country of another.-JOHNSON: Piazzi, 52. |