On February 8, 1577, English scholar Robert Burton, was born in Leicestershire. He spent most of his life at Oxford University, first as a student, then as vicar of St. Thomas Church in Oxford.
Burton was a mathematician who had an interest in astrology, and he suffered from depression, or melancholy as it was called in those times, for much of his life. One of his attempted self-cures for his depression was to go down to the bridge at Oxford and listen to the barge men “scold and storm and swear at one another.” Hearing such nonsense reportedly made Mr. Burton laugh uproariously.
In another attempt at treating himself out of his depressive episodes, Burton wrote his most famous book, The Anatomy of Melancholy. A few quotations therefrom:
“I had a heavy heart and an ugly head, a kind of impostume in my head, which I was very desirous to be unladen of.”
“Why doth one man’s yawning make another yawn?” (Yes, why doth it?)
“I may not here omit those two main plagues and common dotages of human kind, wine and women, which have infatuated and besotted myriads of people; they go commonly together.”
“Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it no small deduction for the life of man.”
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
“Aristotle said . . . ‘melancholy men of all others are most witty.'”
Vicar Burton was “most witty,” and I think I’ll add his Anatomy to my TBR list.
Some famous and learned men were fans:
Charles Lamb, the sixteenth/seventeenth century essayist whose birthday is to celebrated soon on the 10th of February: “”I don’t know if you ever dipt into Burton’s Anatomy. His manner is to shroud and carry off his feelings under a cloud of learned words.”
About Samuel Johnson in Boswell’s Life: “Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.”
