 | An Odd Sort of Popular Book |  |
AN ODD SORT OF POPULAR BOOK.
MULTIPLICITY of editions does not make a book a classic. Otherwise Worcester's Dictionary and Mrs. Lincoln's Cook-Book might almost rival Shakespeare. Nevertheless, when a work which has little but its literary quality to recommend it achieves sudden and permanent popularity, it is safe to assume that there is something about it which will repay curious consideration. As to the popularity of The Anatomy of Melancholy there can be no dispute. "Scarce any book of philology in our land hath, in so short a time, passed through so many editions," says old Fuller; though why "philology"? The first of these editions appeared in 1621. It was followed by four others during the few years preceding the author's death in 1640. Three more editions were published at different times in the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century was apparently contented to read Burton in the folios; but the book was reprinted in the year 1800, and since then it has been issued in various forms at least as many as forty times, though never as yet with what might be called thorough editing.
Quantity of approval is in this case well supported by quality. Milton showed his admiration, as usual, by imitation. Sterne conveyed passage after passage almost bodily into Tristram Shandy. Southey's odd book, The Doctor, follows Burton closely in manner and often in matter. Dr. Johnson said that The Anatomy of Melancholy was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise; large commendation surely, and I have never found any other, even of the most devout Burtonians, quite ready to echo it. Lamb was a reader, adorer, and imitator; Keats, the first two, at any rate. Finally, Mr. Saintsbury assures us that "for reading either continuous or desultory, either grave or gay, at all times of life and in all moods of temper, there are few authors who stand the test of practice so well as the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy." For all that, I would not advise the general reader to buy a copy in too great haste. He will, perhaps, find it easier to read about the book than to read it.
What we know of the life of Robert Burton is a very small matter, as is the case with so many of his greater contemporaries. He was born at Lindley in Leicestershire in 1577, thirteen years after Shakespeare, four years after Ben Jonson. He was at school at Sutton-Coldfield in Warwickshire and at Nuneaton till he was seventeen. He then went to Brasenose College. In 1599 he was elected student of Christ Church. In 1614 he received the degree of B. D., and in 1616 he became vicar of St. Thomas in the west suburb of Oxford. About 1630 he added to this cure the rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire. Besides the Anatomy he wrote a Latin comedy, Philosophaster, unusually clever and brilliant in its kind. He died in 1640, and was buried in the choir of Christ Church Cathedral. The little bit of gossip narrated by wood is amusingly illustrative of the mythical character so apt to attach itself to the solitary scholar. It seems that Burton's death occurred at or very near the time which had been foretold by himself from the calculation of his own nativity; in consequence of which "several of the students did not forbear to whisper among themselves that, rather than there should be a mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven through a slip about his neck." With the exception of a few other bits of doubtful gossip and of the full text of his will, this is all of importance that has come down to us about the author of
Far more than most great writers, however, Burton left the reflection of his life and character in his work, and The Anatomy of Melancholy may be called one of the most intensely personal books that were ever written. To be sure, the author does not constantly and directly refer to himself and his own affairs. Nevertheless, the impress of his spirit is felt on every page.
Several of the biographical facts above mentioned are derived from casual remarks dropped here and there throughout the book. Of his mother, Mistress Dorothy Burton, he says that she had "excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, etc.," and that she had "done many famous and good cures upon divers poor folks that were otherwise destitute of help." He gives us a reminiscence of his boyhood: "They think no slavery in the world (as once I did myself) like to that of a grammar scholar." He speaks with a grain of bitterness of a younger brother's lot: "I do much respect and honor true gentry and nobility; I was born of worshipful parents myself, in an ancient family; but I am a younger brother, it concerns me not."
He gives us many glimpses of his lonely scholar's life. In his youth he was ambitious: "I was once so mad to bussell abroad and seek about for preferment, tyre myself, and trouble all my friends." But the world is cold, friendship formal and touches not the heart: "I have had some such noble friends, acquaintance, and scholars, but most part they and I parted as we met; they gave me as much as I requested and that was—." His habits are those of the recluse and ascetic: "I am a bachelor myself and lead a monastic life in a college." "I am aquæ potor, drink no wine at all." Yet he loves the sweet of nature too, if the bitter thirst of knowledge would permit: "No man ever took more delight in springs, woods, groves, gardens, walks, fishponds, rivers, etc." Force of circumstance, lack of opportunity, younger brotherhood, timidity, have kept him secluded within the walls of great libraries, have piled huge dusty tomes on the human beating of his heart. "I have lived a silent, sedentary, solitary, private life in the University, as long almost as Xenocrates in Athens, to learn wisdom as he did, penned up most part in my study." Yet if the Fates had willed otherwise, the man would have been consenting. Let us note right here that this is the whole charm of Burton and his great book. It is no dry treatise of a gray-haired pedant, thumbing contentedly forever dull volumes of mouldy tradition. For all its quaint garb and thorny aspect, it is a great human document, the work of a man whose bodily life was passed in his study, but whose senses were all keenly, pantingly alert to catch the motion of the wide world beyond. Beauty—he adores beauty. "This amazing, confounding, admirable beauty; 't is nature's crown, gold, and glory." Love—Oh, how he could have loved! "I confess I am but a novice, a contemplator only," he writes of it; "yet homo sum, I am a man, and not altogether inexpert in this subject." Like Flaubert, he doubtless leaned forth from his study window on many a moonlit night, and heard a company of revelers with merry song and pleasant jest, and caught the dim flutter of a white gown, and found all his books and learning mere dust beside the laughter and the passion of the world.
And so he grew melancholy, as often happens in such cases. When a man gets these fits on him, he may either rush out into active life for the sake of contrast, he may marry, or go into politics, or do
The loose and literary sense in which Burton uses the word melancholy is characteristic of the tone of his book. Without really attempting any precise definition, or, rather, having confused the reader with a multitude of definitions taken from all the authors under the sun, he proceeds to include every form of nervous depression, from a mere temporary fit of the blues to acute or chronic mania and insanity. At the same time, being a man of a logical and systematic turn of mind, he imposes on others, and perhaps on himself, with a great show of formal and scientific treatment. The work is mapped out into divisions, partitions, sections, members, subsections, arranged in as awful order of deduction as Euclid or the Ethics of Spinoza. But let no one be alarmed. This is pure matter of form. The author speaks of what he likes, when he likes. Occasionally he takes the pains to recognize that he is digressing, as in the delicious chapters entitled A Digression of Spirits, A Digression of Air. And then, with a sigh, he tries to call himself back to the work in hand; "But my melancholy spaniels quest, my game is sprung, and I must suddenly come down and follow." The game leads him into strange places, however. The vast and checkered meadow of the human heart is his hunting-ground. Melancholy is the skeleton in the closet, always popping out at odd times and in unexpected corners; but he keeps it wreathed with bright flowers, and made sweet with strange and subtle savors, and brilliant and sparkling with jewels of quaint wit and wandering fancy. Nevertheless, when he does discuss his subject itself, he has bits of sound common sense, useful to-day and always, like his recommendation of "the three Salernitan Doctors, D. Merryman, D. Diet, and D. Quiet, which cure all diseases."
Some one may object that this saying is quoted and not Burton's own invention. Certainly, Burton is the greatest quoter in literature, far surpassing even Montaigne. His mind was full of the thoughts of others, and he poured them forth together with his own in inextricable mixture. He was a man drenched, drowned in learning, not learning of the quick, smart, practical, modern type, which enables its possessor to give interviews on the inhabitants of Mars and testify on poisons at a murder trial, but mediæval learning, drowsy, strange, unprofitable, and altogether lovely. In the discussion of these melancholy matters all preceding literature is laid under contribution, not only the classics, but countless writers of the Middle Ages, doubtless respectable in their own day and possibly in Burton's, but now so dead that the reader stares and gasps at them and wonders whether his author is not inventing references, like the Oracle in the Innocents Abroad. Melanelius, Ruffus, Aëtius describe melancholy "to be a bad and pievish disease." Hercules de Saxonia approves this opinion, as do Fucheius, Arnoldus, Guianerius, and others—not unnaturally. Paulus takes a different view, and Halyabbas still another. Aretæus calls it "a perpetual anguish of the soul, fastened on one thing, without an ague." In this brilliant but hazy statement the absence of ague is at least a comfort. It is disquieting, indeed, to find that "this definition of his Merrialis taxeth;" but we are reassured by the solid support of Ælianus Montaltus. And so on.
Pure pedantry, you will say. Well, yes. It would be, if Burton were not saved from the extreme of pedantry by a touch of humor, which makes you
This trick of constant quoting has led some shallow people to set Burton down as a mere quoter and nothing else. There could be no greater mistake. It is the activity and independence of his own mind which make him so eager to watch and compare the minds of others; and while he profited by their thinking, he was abundantly able to do his own, as every page of his book shows. One need ask no better specimen, of strong, shrewd, satirical reflection than the sketch of a Utopian commonwealth in the introduction which purports to be by Democritus Junior; and of many other passages we may say the same.
Nor was our author lacking in deep, human sympathy, although his solitary life and keen intellect disposed him to be a trifle cynical. The celebrated bit with the refrain "Ride on!"—so brilliantly imitated by Sterne—shows a pitiful appreciation of sorrow and misery, which, indeed, are abundantly recognized everywhere in the Anatomy.
But perhaps the most characteristic illustration of Burton's intense appetite for humanity is his frequent reference to common daily life and manners. M. Anatole France tells us that the author of The Imitation must certainly have been a man of the world before he betook himself to his lonely cell and pious meditation. If Burton never was a man of the world, he would certainly have liked to be one. He peers out from behind the bars of his cell and catches every possible glimpse of the curious things which are shut away from him. Shreds of fashion, hints of frivolity, quips of courtiers, the flash of swords and glittering of jewels,—he will find a place for them. Woman fascinates him especially,—that singular creature who apparently cares nothing for books and study, laughs, weeps, scolds, caresses, without any reasonable cause whatever. Certainly no philosopher should take any notice of her,—yet they all do. And he exhausts himself in cunning heaps of observation, vain interrogations of mysterious boudoirs: "Why do they make such glorious shows with their scarfs, feathers, fans, masks, furs, laces, tiffanies, ruffs, falls, calls, cuffs, damasks, velvets, tinsel, cloth of gold, silver, tissue? With colors of heavens, stars, planets; the strength of metals, stones, odors, flowers, birds, beasts, fishes, and whatsoever Africk, Asia, America, sea, land, art and industry of man can afford? why do they use such novelty of inventions; such new-fangled tires; and spend such inestimable sums on them? . . . Why is it but, as a day-net catcheth larks, to make young men stoop unto them?" And old philosophers also, he might have added.
I have taken this passage from the section on Love Melancholy; for Burton devotes a large portion of his work to that delightful subject. He feels it necessary to make some apology for entering upon it. Some persons will think it hardly becoming in so grave, reverend, and dignified a gentleman,—a clergy-man
The apology once made, with what gusto he sets forth, how he luxuriates in golden tidbits from love's delicate revels! "A little soft hand, pretty little mouth, small, fine, long fingers, 'tis that which Apollo did admire in Daphne." "Of all eyes (by the way) black are most amiable, enticing, and fair." "Oh, that pretty tone, her divine and lovely looks, her everything lovely, sweet, amiable, and pretty, pretty, pretty." Is it not the mere ecstasy of amorous frenzy? Again, he gives us a very banquet, a rosy wreath of old, simple English names, a perfect old-fashioned garden: "Modest Matilda, pretty, pleasing Peg, sweet, singing Susan, mincing, merry Moll, dainty, dancing Doll, neat Nancy, jolly Jone, nimble Nell, kissing Kate, bouncing Bess with black eyes, fair Phillis, with fine white hands, fiddling Frank, tall Tib, slender Sib, etc." Do you not hear their merry laughter, as he heard it in his dim study, a dream of fair faces and bright forms twisting, and turning, and flashing back and forth under the harvest moon?
Yet, after all, love is a tyrant and a traitor, a meteor rushing with blind fury among the placid orbs of life. What is a man to make of these wild contrasts and tragical transitions? At one moment the lover seems to be on the pinnacle of felicity, "his soul sowced, imparadised, imprisoned in his lady; he can do nothing, think of nothing but her; she is his cynosure, Hesperus, and Vesper, his morning and evening star, his goddess, his mistress, his life, his soul, his everything; dreaming, waking, she is always in his mouth; his heart, eyes, ears, and all his thoughts are full of her." But then something goes wrong and the note is altogether changed. "When this young gallant is crossed in his love, he laments, and cries, and roars downright. `The virgin's gone and I am gone, she 's gone, she 's gone, and what shall I do? Where shall I find her? whom shall I ask? what will become of me? I am weary of this life, sick, mad, and desperate.' "
It becomes the sage, then, to be clear of these toys. If he is to write about Love Melancholy, let him cure it. Let him hold up a warning to the unwary. What is the use of days and nights spent in toiling over learned authors, if the young and foolish are not to have the benefit of one's experience? If only the young and foolish would profit! If only the unwary would beware! Still we must do our part. Let us remind them that beauty fades. It is a rather well-known fact, but youth is so prone to forget it. "Suppose thou beholdest her in a frosty morning, in cold weather, in some passion or perturbation of mind, weeping, chafing, etc., riveled and ill-favored to behold.... Let her use all helps art and nature can yield; be like her, and her, and whom thou wilt, or all these in one; a little sickness, a fever, small-pox, wound, scar, loss of an eye or limb, a violent passion, mars all in an instant, disfigures all." Then let us exalt the charms of a bachelor's life. It has its weak points, as I feel, writing here alone in the dust and chill, with nothing but books about me, no prattle of children, no merry chatter of busy women. But what then? It is quieter, after all. "Consider how contentedly, quietly, neatly, plentifully, sweetly, and how merrily he lives! He hath no man to care for but himself, none to please, no charge, none to control him, is tied to no residence, no cure to serve, may go and come when, whither, live where he will, his own master, and do what he list himself." Nevertheless, it all sounds a little hollow, and as I sit here in the winter midnight with my old pipe, I
I have made my quotations with very little skill, if the ingenious reader does not by this time feel that Burton was in his way a great master of style. His skill and power as a writer, more than anything else, show that he was not a mere pedant or Dryasdust. It is true, he himself disclaims any such futile preocoupation. He has not "amended the style, which now flows remissly, as it was first conceived." His book is "writ with as small deliberation as I do ordinarily speak, without all affectation of big words, fustian phrases, jingling terms." But the facts belie him, and one shudders to think what must have been his idea of the big words he does not use. A careful collation of the first edition of the Anatomy with the last published in the author's lifetime not only shows a great number of additions and alterations, but proves conclusively that these changes were made, in many cases, with a view to style and to style only. Take a single instance. In the first edition Burton wrote: "If it be so that the earth is a moon, then are we all lunatic within." Later he amplified this as follows, with obvious gain in the beauty of the phrase: "If it be so that the earth is a moon, then are we also giddy, vertiginous, and lunatic within this sublunary maze." Amended, I think, but oh, for the "big words, fustian phrases, jingling terms"!
Yes, Burton was a master of style. He could bend language to his ends and do as he willed with it. If he is often rough, harsh, wanton in expression, it is simply because, like Donne, he chose to be so. Does he wish to tell a plain story? Who can do it more lightly, simply, briefly? "An ass and a mule went laden over a brook, the one with salt, the other with wool; the mule's pack was wet by chance; the salt melted, his burden the lighter; and he thereby much eased. He told the ass, who, thinking to speed as well, wet his pack likewise at the next water; but it was much the heavier, he quite tired."
Does he wish to paint the foul and horrible? I know of nothing in Swift or Zola more replete with the luxury of hideousness than the unquotable description of the defects which infatuated love will overlook,—a description which Keats tells a correspondent he would give his favorite leg to have written. Here, as in so many passages I have quoted, Burton piles up epithet after epithet, till it seems as if the dictionary would be exhausted,—a trick which, by the bye, he may have caught from Rabelais, and which would become very monotonous, if it were not applied with such wonderful variety and fertility.
Then, at his will, the magician can turn with ease from the bitter to the sweet. When he touches love or beauty, all his ruggedness is gone. His words become full of grace, of suave, vague richness, of delicacy, of mystery, as in the phrase which Southey quotes in The Doctor: "For peregrination charms our senses with such unspeakable and sweet variety that some count him unhappy that never traveled, a kind of prisoner, and pity his case, that from his cradle to his old age beholds the same still; still, still the same, the same." Or, to take a more elaborate picture, see this, which might be a Tintoretto or a Spenser: "Witty Lucian, in that pathetical love-passage or pleasant description of Jupiter's stealing of Europa and swimming from Phœnicia to Crete, makes the sea calm, the winds hush, Neptune and Amphitrite riding in their chariot to break the waves before them, the Tritons dancing round about with every one a torch; the sea-nymphs, half-naked, keeping time on dolphins' backs and singing Hymenæus; Cupid nimbly tripping on the top of the waters; and Venus herself coming after in a shell, strawing roses and flowers on their heads."
I have dwelt thus long on Burton's
One of the characteristic oddities of Burton's style is his perpetual use of the phrase etc. When his quick and fluent pen has heaped together all the nouns or adjectives in heaven and in earth, and in the waters under the earth, he completes the picture with the vast, vague gesture of an etc. Take an often-quoted passage in the introduction, in which he describes his own life as an observer and contemplator: "Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilees, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays; then again, as in a new-shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, death of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters; to-day we hear of new lords and officers created, to-morrow of some great men deposed, and again of fresh honors conferred; one is let loose, another imprisoned; one purchaseth, another breaketh; he thrives, his neighbor turns bankrupt; now plenty, then again dearth and famine; one runs, another rides, wrangles, laughs, weeps, etc."
So we may sum up The Anatomy of Melancholy in an etc. The general tone of the book, with its infinite multiplicity, reminds one of nothing more than of the quaint blending of mirth, mystery, and spiritual awe so deliciously expressed in Stevenson's baby couplet,—
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Only Burton would have laid a mischievous and melancholy emphasis on should.
Gamaliel Bradford, Jr.
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