Robert Burton (1577–1640) was an English scholar, writer, and Anglican clergyman. His Anatomy of Melancholy is a masterpiece of style and a valuable index to the science of his time, mixed with astrology, meteorology, psychology, theology, and rich, old-fashioned kidology.
Born in Lindley, Leicestershire, Burton was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church and earned a bachelor of divinity in 1614. He worked as the vicar of St Thomas the Martyr’s Church, Oxford, in 1616 and at the rectory of Segrave, Leicestershire, since 1630. He kept both livings but spent his life at Christ Church, where he died.
Burton’s first work was the Latin comedy Philosophaster (1606; edited with an English translation by P. Jordan-Smith, 1931,) a vivacious exposure of charlatanism that has affinities with Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist. It was acted at Christ Church in 1618.
The first edition of Burton’s masterpiece, Anatomy of Melancholy, was written under the pseudonym ‘Democritus Junior,’ and appeared in quarto in 1621 (final, sixth edition, 1651–52.) This strange book is a vast and witty compendium of Jacobean knowledge about the ‘disease’ of melancholy, its causes, and the symptoms. It was gathered from classical and medieval writers, as well as folklore and superstition. One of the most exciting parts is the long preface, ‘Democritus to the Reader,’ in which Burton indirectly accounts for himself and his studies.
The Anatomy was widely read in the 17th century, but it lapsed into obscurity for a while. In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson admired it, and Laurence Sterne borrowed from it. In the 19th century, the devotion of Charles Lamb helped to bring the Anatomy into favor with the Romantics and inspired intellectuals from John Keats to Cy Twombly. The standard modern edition is the edition The Anatomy of Melancholy (6 vol., 1989–2000.)
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Sickness and disease are in weak minds the sources of melancholy; but that which is painful to the body, may be profitable to the soul. Sickness puts us in mind of our mortality, and, while we drive on heedlessly in the full career of worldly pomp and jollity, kindly pulls us by the ear, and brings us to a proper sense of our duty.
—Robert Burton
Humor purges the blood, making the body young, lively, and fit for any manner of employment.
—Robert Burton
Comparisons are odious.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Comparisons
Old friends become bitter enemies on a sudden for toys and small offenses.
—Robert Burton
There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Idleness
He is only fanastical that is not in fashion.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Fashion
Seem not greater than thou art.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Greatness
They are proud in humility, proud that they are not proud.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Humility
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.
—Robert Burton
A nightingale dies for shame if another bird sings better.
—Robert Burton
If there is a hell upon earth it is to be found in a melancholy man’s heart.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Sorrow
A good conscience is a continual feast.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Conscience
Conquer thyself. Till thou has done this, thou art but a slave; for it is almost as well to be subjected to another’s appetite as to thine own.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Self-Control
Our conscience, which is a great ledger book, wherein are written all our offenses…grinds our souls with the remembrance of some precedent sins, makes us reflect upon, accuse and condemn ourselves.
—Robert Burton
No rule is so general, which admits not some exception.
—Robert Burton
A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Words
He whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder to the wheel.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Perseverance
Ambitious men may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Ambition
Birds of a feather will gather together.
—Robert Burton
Topics: Birds
He that will not when he may, When he will he shall have nay
—Robert Burton
Topics: One liners
The pen worse than the sword.
—Robert Burton