The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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"TO THE READER. "Be pleased to know (Courteous Reader) that since the last Impression of this Book, the ingenuous Author of it is deceased, leaving a Copy of it exactly corrected, with several considerable Additions by his own hand; this Copy he committed to my care and custody, with directions to have those Additions inserted in the next Edition; which in order to his command, and the Publicke Good, is faithfully performed in this last Impression." H. C. (_i.e. HEN. CRIPPS._) The following testimonies of various authors will serve to show the estimation in which this work has been held:-- "The ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, wherein the author hath piled up variety of much excellent learning. Scarce any book of philology in our land hath, in so short a time, passed so many editions."--_Fuller's Worthies_, fol. 16. "'Tis a book so full of variety of reading, that gentlemen who have lost their time, and are put to a push for invention, may furnish themselves with matter for common or scholastical discourse and writing."--_Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis_, vol. i. p. 628. 2d edit. "If you never saw BURTON UPON MELANCHOLY, printed 1676, I pray look into it, and read the ninth page of his Preface, 'Democritus to the Reader.' There is something there which touches the point we are upon; but I mention the author to you, as the pleasantest, the most learned, and the most full of sterling sense. The wits of Queen Anne's reign, and the beginning of |
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