On melancholy

Robert Burton, Nicholas Robins

• Publisher: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781780942186
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

Journey through the subject of melancholia in this easily accessible volume, touching on topics from love and sex to religion and geography. A new volume to add to Hesperus's unique and bestselling 'On' series.

On melancholy

Democritus Junior to the Reader

Burton addresses the reader in the guise of a latter-day Democritus, the ‘laughing philosopher’ of ancient Greece.

Gentle reader, I presume thou wilt be very inquisitive to know what antick or personate actor this is that so insolently 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 [Seneca] said, In the first place, supposing I do not wish to answer, who shall make me? 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, When you see the cover, why ask about the thing hidden? 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 [do], 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 tenent1, or paradox of the Earth’s motion, of infinite Worlds 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. Besides, it hath been always an ordinary custom, as Gellius observes, for later writers and imposters to broach many absurd and insolent fictions under the name of so noble a philosopher as Democritus, to get themselves credit and by that means the more to be respected; as artificers usually do, ascribing a new statue to Praxitiles himself. ’Tis not so with me.

No Centaurs here, or Gorgons look to find,

My subject is of man, and human kind.

– Martial

Thou thyself art the subject of my discourse.

Democritus Senior

Democritus, as he is described by Hippocrates and Laertius, was a little wearish old man, very melancholy by nature, averse from company in his latter days, and much given to solitariness, a famous Philosopher in his age, coeval with Socrates, wholly addicted to his studies at the last, and to a private life: writ many excellent works, a great Divine, according to the divinity of those times, as an expert Physician, a Politician, an excellent Mathematician, Diacosmus and the rest of his works do witness. […] After a wandering life he settled at Abdera, a town in Thrace, and was sent for thither to be their Lawmaker, Recorder, or Town Clerk, as some will; or as others, he was there bred and born. Howsoever it was, there he lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholly betaking himself to his studies and a private life, saving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven, and laugh heartily at such variety of ridiculous objects, which there he saw. Such a one was Democritus.

Burton’s self-description

But in the mean time, how doth this concern me, or upon what reference do I usurp his habit? I confess indeed that to compare myself unto him for ought I have yet said, were both impudency and arrogancy: I do not presume to make any parallel; he outranks me by countless numbers; I am inconsiderable, nothing at all; I do not aspire to greatness, nor hope for it. Yet this much I will say of myself, and that I hope without all suspicion of pride, or self-conceit, I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life, with myself and the Muses in the University as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, nearly to old age, to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study. For I have been brought up a student in the most flourishing College of Europe, the most august College2, and can brag with Jovius, almost, in that splendour of Vaticanish retirement, confined to the company of the distinguished, I have spent thirty-seven full and fortunate years; for thirty years I have continued (having the use of as good Libraries as ever he had) a scholar, and would be therefore loth, either by living as a drone, to be an unprofitable or unworthy Member of so learned and noble a society, or to write that which should be any way dishonourable to such a royal and ample foundation. Something I have done, though by my profession a Divine, yet being carried away by a giddy disposition, as he [Scaliger] said, out of a running wit, an unconstant, unsettled mind, I had a great desire (not able to attain superficial skill in any) to have some smattering in all, to be Somebody in everything, Nothing in anything, which Plato commends, out of him Lipsius approves and furthers, as fit to be imprinted in all curious wits, not to be a slave of one science, or dwell altogether in one subject, as most do, but to rove abroad, the servant of a hundred arts, to have an oar in every man’s boat, to taste of every dish, and sip of every cup, which saith Montaigne, was well performed by Aristotle, and his learned countryman Adrian Turnebus. This roving humour, (though not with like success) I have ever had, and like a ranging spaniel, that barks at every bird he sees, leaving his game, I have followed all, saving that which I should, and may justly complain, and truly (for who is everywhere is nowhere), which Gesner did in modesty, that I have read many books, but to little purpose, for want of good method; I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors in our Libraries, with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgement. I never travelled but in Map or Card, in which my unconfined thoughts have freely expatiated, as having ever been especially delighted with the study of Cosmography. Saturn was the Lord of my geniture, culminating, etc., and Mars principal significator3 of manners in partile4 conjunction with mine Ascendant; both fortunate in their houses, etc.. I am not poor, I am not rich, nothing’s here, but nothing’s lacking, I have little, I want nothing; all my treasure is in Minerva’s tower. Greater preferment, as I could never get, so I am not in debt for it; I have a competency (praise God) from my noble and munificent Patrons, though Ilive still a Collegiate student, as Democritus in his garden, and lead a monastic life, a theatre to myself, sequestered from those tumults and troubles of the world, as he [Heinsius] said, and in some high place above you all, like the wise Stoick, seeing all ages, past and present, as at one glance: I hear and see what is done abroad, how others run, ride, turmoil and macerate themselves in court and country; far from those wrangling lawsuits, courts of vanity, marts of ambition, I am wont to laugh with myself: I laugh at all, [each] only secure lest my suit go amiss, my shops perish, corn and cattle miscarry, trade decay. I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator of other men’s fortunes and adventures, and how they act their parts, which methinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theatre or scene. I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies5, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights, peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms. A vast confusion of vows, wishes, actions, edicts, petitions, lawsuits, pleas, laws, proclamations, complaints, grievances, are daily brought to our ears. New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes6, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts, new paradoxes, opinions, schisms, heresies, controversies in philosophy, religion, etc.. Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villainies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of Princes, new discoveries, expeditions; now comical then tragical matters. Today we hear of new Lords and officers created, tomorrow of some great men deposed, and then again of fresh honours conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbour turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps etc.. Thus I daily hear, and such like, both private and publick news. Amidst the gallantry and misery of the world; jollity, pride, perplexities and cares, simplicity and villainy; subtlety, knavery, candour and integrity, mutually mixed and offering themselves, I rub on in a strictly private life; as I have still lived, so I now continue, as I was from the first, left to a solitary life, and mine own domestick discontents: saving that sometimes, not to tell a lie, as Diogenes went into the city, and Democritus to the haven, to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, not so wise an observer as a plain rehearser, not as they did to scoff or laugh at all, but with a mixed passion.

Burton gives his reasons for writing

If any man except against the matter or manner of treating of this subject, and will demand a reason of it, I can allege more than one. I writ of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business, as Rhasis holds: and howbeit to be busied in toys is to small purpose, yet hear that divine Seneca: Better do to no end than nothing. I writ therefore, and busied myself in this playing labour that I might avoid the torpor of laziness, with Vectius in Macrobius, and turn my leisure to purpose. […] I might be of Thucydides’ opinion: To know a thing and not express it, is all one as if he knew it not. When I first took this task in hand, and as he saith, undertook the work, my genius impelling me, this I aimed at: to ease my mind by writing, for I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of imposthume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of, and could imagine no fitter evacuation than this. Besides I might not well refrain, for one must needs scratch where it itches. I was not a little offended with this malady, shall I say my Mistress Melancholy, my Egeria, or my Evil Genius? And for that cause, as he that is stung with a scorpion, I would expel one nail with another, idleness with idleness, the antidote from the Viper, make an Antidote out of that which was the prime cause of my disease. […]

I would help others out of a fellow-feeling, and as that virtuous Lady did of old, being a Leper herself, bestow all her portion to build an Hospital for Lepers, I will spend my time and knowledge, which are my greatest fortunes, for the common good of all.

The itch to write

’Tis most true that many are possessed by an incurable itch to write, and there is no end of writing of books, as the Wise-man found of old, in this scribbling age especially, wherein the number of books is without number (as a worthy man saith), presses be oppressed, and out of an itching humour, that every man hath to show himself, desirous of fame and honour (we all write, learned and unlearned) he will write no matter what, and scrape together it boots not whence. […] As Apothecaries we make new mixtures every day, pour out of one vessel into another; and as those old Romans robbed all the cities of the world, to set out their bad-sited Rome, we skim off the cream of other men’s wits, pick the choice flowers of their tilled gardens to set out our own sterile plots. They lard their lean books (so Jovius inveighs) with the fat of others’ works, the blundering thieves. A fault that every Writer finds, as I do now, and yet faulty themselves. Men of three letters, all thieves; they pilfer out of old Writers to stuff up their new Comments, scrape Ennius’ dung-hills, and out of Democritus’ pit, as I have done. By which...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• On melancholy
• Biographical note
• About the Publisher
• SELECTED TITLES FROM HESPERUS PRESS
• Copyright