BURTON, ROBERT (1577-1640), English divine and au thor of The Anatomy of Melancholy, was born at Lindley, Leices tershire, on Feb. 8, 1577. He was educated at Sutton Coldfield and Nuneaton, became a commoner of Brasenose college, Oxford, in 1593, and six years later was elected a student at Christ Church, where he spent the rest of his days. In 1616 he was appointed vicar of St. Thomas's, Oxford, and about 163o rector of Segrave, Leicestershire. He died on Jan. 25, 1640, having some years pre viously predicted the year of his death by the calculation of his nativity. His portrait in Brasenose shows the face of a scholar— shrewd, contemplative, humorous.
Burton's first writing, Philosophaster (16o6), was a Latin comedy and vivacious exposure of charlatanism. It was acted at Christ Church in 1617, but was supposed to be lost, until edited by W. E. Buckley in 1862, together with a number of minor academical exercises. In 1621 appeared The Anatomy of Melan choly (by Democritus Junior), revised editions being published in 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, the sixth edition posthumously printed in 1651 containing Burton's last revision. Sir William Osler has spoken of the Anatomy as a "great medical treatise, orderly in arrangement, serious in purpose." But it is much more; it is a mine of information on the life and the thought of the period, covering such diverse topics as the varieties of contemporary sports, current anecdotes, cosmological opinions, and religious theories ; and again its abundant quotations from the patristics, the classics, and English authors put before us the gracious erudition of a scholar. In the very extensive preface, Burton de clares that he wrote the treatise in order to escape melancholy, and gives his reasons for assuming the name, Democritus Junior. After remarking on the prevalence of madness, even in commu nities and states, he sketches a Utopia with many practical sug gestions, including old-age pensions. The preface is followed by a tabular synopsis of part one. Then, after a brief description of diseases in general, the innumerable causes of melancholy, which differs from madness only in degree, are discussed. Among the natural, as opposed to the supernatural causes, Burton mentions the influence of the stars, heredity, education, bodily ills, acci dental states of life, and kinds of food, exhibiting under the sub division of particular causes a wealth of medical lore. The first part ends with a discussion of suicide. Part two is devoted to the cure of melancholy and sets forth the need of regulating the diet and organic processes, the value of pure air and exercise, the advantages of rectifying dreams, passions and mental perturba tions, and the remedial powers of various drugs and of surgery. Part three is occupied firstly with love-melancholy, including an intricate treatise on love, interspersed with famous love-stories from the Bible and from history, and secondly with religious melancholy.
The Anatomy, widely read in the 17th century, lapsed for a time into obscurity, but Dr. Johnson greatly admired it, Sterne laid it heavily under contribution, and Charles Lamb found a kindred spirit reflected in it. Of the many editions following those cited above the best is that of A. R. Shilleto (1896), re issued in 1923 in Bohn's Library series. The 1651 edition was elaborately reprinted by the Nonesuch Press in 1925.
See Robert Burton and the Anatomy of Melancholy, being papers edit. by F. Madan for the Oxford Bibliographical Society (1926) ; and Burton the Anatomist, Being Extracts from the Anatomy, etc., edit. by G. C. F. Mead and R. C. Clift (1925) .