The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
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George the First, were not a little beholden to him."--_Archbishop
Herring's Letters_, 12mo. 1777. p. 149. "BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, he (Dr. Johnson) said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise."--_Boswell's Life of Johnson_, vol. i. p. 580. 8vo. edit. "BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY is a valuable book," said Dr. Johnson. "It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is great spirit and great power in what Burton says when he writes from his own mind."--_Ibid_, vol. ii. p. 325. "It will be no detraction from the powers of Milton's original genius and invention, to remark, that he seems to have borrowed the subject of _L' Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_, together with some particular thoughts, expressions, and rhymes, more especially the idea of a contrast between these two dispositions, from a forgotten poem prefixed to the first edition of BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, entitled, 'The Author's Abstract of Melancholy; or, A Dialogue between Pleasure and Pain.' Here pain is melancholy. It was written, as I conjecture, about the year 1600. I will make no apology for abstracting and citing as much of this poem as will be sufficient to prove, to a discerning reader, how far it had taken possession of Milton's mind. The measure will appear to be the same; and that our author was at least an attentive reader of Burton's book, may be already concluded from the traces of resemblance which I have incidentally noticed in passing through the _L' Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_."--After extracting the lines, Mr. Warton adds, "as to the very elaborate work to which these visionary verses are no unsuitable introduction, the writer's variety of learning, his quotations from scarce and curious books, his pedantry sparkling with rude wit and shapeless elegance, miscellaneous |
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