BURTON, ROBERT (1577-1640). The author of the Anatomy of Melancholy. He was born at Lindley, in Leicestershire, February 8, 1377, and was educated at Brasenose and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1616 he was appointed to the vicarage of Saint Thomas, in the vest sub urbs of Oxford: and about 1630 to the rectory of Segrave in his native county. Though he offici ated at Saint Thomas for a time, he passed his life almost wholly at Christ Church, where he died January 25, 1640, at or near the time he had foretold by the calculation of his horoscope. To the Bodleian Library he left his rare collec tion of books. His brother erected a monument to his memory in the Cathedral of Christ Church. Anthony Wood, in the .I theme', thus wrote of him "Be was an exact mathematician, a curious calcu lator of nativities, a general read scholar, a thor ough-pa•ed philologist, and one that understood the surveying of lands well. As he was by many accounted a severe student, a devourer of authors, a melancholy and humorous person, so by others who knew him well, a person of great honesty, plain-dealing. and charity. I have
heard some of the antients of Christ. Church often say that his company was very merry, fa cets, and juveMle." The Anatomy was first pub lished in 1621. lturton was constantly revising his work, of which four more editions appeared during his life. After his death the final ver sion was printed from his annotated copy (1651-52). Burton dedieated himself to melan choly, analyzing its various manifestations after the formal manner of treatises on divinity. His book is one of the most curious and interesting in the whole realm of literature. Dr. Johnson said that it "was the only hook that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise." Milton read it, deriving hints for Ii P(nscroso ; Sterne pillaged it: Lamb admired it and imitated its quaint style. Consult: The Anatomy. edited by Shilleto. with introduction by Bullen (London and New York, 1893),