The Anatomy of Melancholy
The Anatomy of Melancholy. By Robert Burton. (Every-man's Library, Dent. 3 vols. 2s. each.) Tine inclusion of Robert Burton in the ranks of Every-man's Library is very right, proper, and welcome. The Anatomy of
Melancholy is a permanent book, which must interest each age in turn ; but it has a particular appeal to our unsettled, dis- gruntled, and inquisitive times. " Melancholy " is a com- prehensive term for all the ills the flesh is heir to, or the spirit either. In anatomizing it, Burton was merely making, from the angle fashionable in 1621, an encyclopaedic study of his particular hobby, human nature. He is by turns pessimistic and amused : whichever he is, his book is the best cure (and the only one he forgot to suggest) for the melancholy or depression which is our birthright.
There have been curiously few editors of the Anatomy. The best, of course, was Burt,on himself, who saw five editions through the Press with great pain to the printers and pleasure to himself. After his death in 1639 there was one new edition, containing corrections which he had left, followed by several reprints. The eighteenth century, as we should expect, ignored the Anatomy ; and Lamb and his contempo- raries, also as we should expect, rediscovered it with delight.
Mr. Holbrook Jackson's edition is as good as could be wished. It is more convenient than the de luxe Nonesuch, and better provided with apparatus criticus. It has an excellent
short introduction and a glossary. The three volumes cor- respond to Burton's own three divisions, the Causes of Melan-
choly, the Cures of Melancholy, and Love Melancholy. Mr.
Jackson has wisely removed to the end of each volume the innumerable classical references, which Burton put in the margin and later editions as footnotes. No one will miss them, and no one can complain that they are not there.
The " Conclusion to the Reader " never appeared after the first edition, so there is no reason why it should:be in this one : but I feel a Rifle regret for its sudden outbreak of mis- giving :
" I do suspect some precedent passages have bin distastfull, as too Satyricall and bitter ; some againe as too Comicall,-homely, broad, or lightly spoken."
It is these very passages, however, which are so much to our taste to-day; Burton's learning is prodigious. His view :s nn medicine have been highly praised. His views on diet are at the least no more absurd than current ones : and he has strong views on fresh air, exercise, unemployment, housing, and heredity. His, tracing of mental depression to physical disorder is masterly, and curiously modern. But his remarks on men and women are the best things in his book, and these are often satirical, often comical, and often homely, broad, and lightly spoken.
The Anatomy is a very companionable book, and Everyman's Library makes it accessible in a companionable form. No one would suspect (apart from the classical quotations) that
Burton was an Oxford recluse. He is a guide to human nature : and those who feel Satyricall and bitter, or even those w 110 like the human race, will find him the most cheerful pessimist
that ever spent a life-time on a single book.
MONICA REDLICH.
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