Oxford, 1989
Burton’s learned and satirical The Anatomy of Melancholy (first published in 1621) is one of the last great works of English prose to have remained unedited. This volume inaugurates an authoritative edition of the work, which is being prepared by a team of scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. It will be followed by two further volumes of text with textual apparatus, and two volumes of commentary.
I am not poore, I am not rich; nihil est, nihil deest, I have litle, I want nothing: all my Treasure is in Minerva’s Towre. Greater preferment as I could never get, so am I not in debt for it, I have a competencie (Laus Deo) from my noble and munificent Patrons, though I live still a Collegiat Student, as Democritus in his Garden, and lead a Monastique life, ipse mihi Theatrum, sequestred from those tumults and trobles of the world,
for a pint of hony thou shalt here likely finde a gallon of gaul, for a dramme of pleasure a pound of paine, for an inch of mirth an ell of mone, as Ivy doth an oke these miseries encompasse our life.