Robert Burton · 1621 · EPUB · Calibre ID 8773
Resurfaced in Cento, Copy, Dictionary (2026-09-24).
Role in the triad
Anchor: the cento. Compiling as cure; diagnosis of scholars’ melancholy.
Why this book
The largest cento in English, and the book most open about its own method, which it lays out in the preface. It supplies the diagnosis Flaubert dramatizes (‘Love of Learning, or overmuch study’, 1.2.3.15) and the method Mullen practises: recombining what has already been said.
Quotations
Verified against the book’s own text on the day of the reading.
- “I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy.” (Democritus Junior to the Reader)
- “Omne meum, nihil meum, ’tis all mine, and none mine.” (ibid.)
- “we can say nothing but what hath been said, the composition and method is ours only, & shows a Scholar.” (ibid.)
- “we shall have a vast Chaos and confusion of Books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning.” (ibid.)
- “Many men (saith he) come to this malady by continual Study, and night-waking, and of all other men, Scholars are most subject to it” (1.2.3.15)
- “I no sooner (saith he) come into the Library, but I bolt the door to me … in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I take my seat” (2.2.4.1, Heinsius)
Themes
authority · cento · compilation · libraries · melancholy of scholars