The Anatomy of Melancholy

“BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY is a valuable book. It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is great spirit and great power in what Burton says when he writes from his own mind.” Dr Johnson

“'Tis a book so full of variety of reading, that gentlemen who have lost their time, and are put to a push for invention, may furnish themselves with matter for common or scholastical discourse and writing.” — Wood's Athenae Oxoniensis, vol. i. p. 628. 2d edit.

“BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, he (Dr. Johnson) said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.” — Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. i. p. 580. 8vo. edit.

“THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY is a book which has been universally read and admired. This work is, for the most part, what the author himself styles it, 'a cento;' but it is a very ingenious one. His quotations, which abound in every page, are pertinent; but if he had made more use of his invention and less of his commonplace-book, his work would perhaps have been more valuable than it is. He is generally free from the affected language and ridiculous metaphors which disgrace most of the books of his time.” — Granger's Biographical History.

“BURTON'S ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, a book once the favourite of the learned and the witty, and a source of surreptitious learning, though written on a regular plan, consists chiefly of quotations: the author has honestly termed it a cento.” — Ferriar's Illustrations of Sterne