Notes.
BURTON'S "ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY."
In this age of "new editions," it is a wonder that no one has favoured the public with a reprint, with notes variorum, of this celebrated English classic.
Dr. Dibdin, in a note to his edition of More's Utopia, vol. ii. p. 97., says:
"Whoever will be at the trouble of consulting Part II, sect. IV. memb.. i. subsect. 4. of the last folio edition of Burton [1676], will see how it varies from the first folio of 1624; and will, in consequence, regret the omission of the notice of these variations in the octavo editions of Burton recently published."
The octavo editions here referred to are those of 1800 and 1806; the latter, I believe, edited by Edward Du Bois. The folio of 1676 is, in all probability, an exact reprint of that of 1651, which certainly differs considerably from those of an earlier date. Henry Cripps, the publisher of the edition of 1651, has the following notice:
"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."
Modern writers have been deeply indebted to old Robert Burton; but he, in his turn, was equally indebted to earlier writers. Dr. Dibdin remarks:
"I suspect that Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, was intimately acquainted with Boiastuan's book as translated by Alday; for there are passages in Burton's 'Love Melancholy' (the most extraordinary and amusing part of his work), which bear a very strong resemblance to many in the 'Gests and Countenances ridiculous of Lovers,' at p. 195 of Boiastuan's Theatre, or Rule of the World."
The title of the curious book mentioned in this extract is—