A History of English Literature by George Saintsbury (e novels for free .txt) π
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The book is a sufficiently strange one at first sight; and it is perhaps no great wonder that uncritical readers should have been bewildered by the bristling quotations from utterly forgotten authorities which, with full and careful reference for the most part, stud its pages, by its elaborate but apparently futile marshalling in "partitions" and "members," in "sections" and "subsections," and by the measureless license of digression which the author allows himself. It opens with a long epistle, filling some hundred pages in the modern editions, from Democritus Junior, as the author calls himself, to the readerβan epistle which gives a true foretaste of the character and style of the text, though, unlike that text, it is not scholastically divided. The division begins with the text itself, and even the laziest reader will find the synopses of Burton's "partitions" a curious study. It is impossible to be, at least in appearance, more methodical, and all the typographical resources of brackets (sub-bracketed even to the seventh or eighth involution) and of reference letters are exhausted in order to draw up a conspectus of the causes, symptoms, nature, effects, and cure of melancholy. This method is not exactly the method of madness, though it is quite possible for a reader to attach more (as also less) importance to it than it deserves. It seems probable on the whole that the author, with the scholastic habits of his time, did actually draw out a programme for the treatment of his subject in some form not very different from these wonderful synopses, and did actually endeavour to keep to it, or at any rate to work on its lines within the general compass of the scheme. But on each several head (and reducing them to their lowest terms the heads are legion) he allowed himself the very widest freedom of digression, not merely in extracting and applying the fruits of his notebook, but in developing his own thoughts,βa mine hardly less rich if less extensive than the treasures of the Bodleian Library which are said to have been put at his disposal.
The consequence is, that the book is one quite impossible to describe in brief space. The melancholy of which the author treats, and of which, no doubt, he was in some sort the victim, is very far from being the mere Byronic or Wertherian disease which became so familiar some hundred years ago. On the other hand, Burton being a practical, and, on the whole, very healthy Englishman, it came something short of "The Melencolia that transcends all wit," the incurable pessimism and quiet despair which have been thought to be figured or prefigured in Durer's famous print. Yet it approaches, and that not distantly, to this latter. It is the Vanity of Vanities of a man who has gone, in thought at least, over the whole round of human pleasures and interests, and who, if he has not exactly found all to be vanity, has found each to be accompanied by some amari aliquid. It is at the same time the frankly expressed hypochondria of a man whose bodily health was not quite so robust as his mental constitution. It is the satiety of learning of a man who, nevertheless, knows that learning, or at least literature, is the only cure for his disease.
In mere style there is perhaps nothing very strongly characteristic in Burton, though there is much that is noteworthy in the way in which he adapts his style to the peculiar character of his book. Like Rabelais, he has but rarely occasion to break through his fantastic habit of stringing others' pearls on a mere string of his own, and to set seriously to the composition of a paragraph of wholly original prose. But when he does, the effect is remarkable, and shows that it was owing to no poverty or awkwardness that he chose to be so much of a borrower. In his usual style, where a mere framework of original may enclose a score or more quotations, translated or not (the modern habit of translating Burton's quotations spoils, among other things, the zest of his own quaint habit of adding, as it were, in the same breath, a kind of summary or paraphrase in English of what he has said in Latin or Greek), he was not superior to his time in the loose construction of sentences; but the wonder is that his fashion of writing did not make him even inferior to it. One of his peculiar tricksβthe only one, perhaps, which he uses to the extent of a mannerismβis the suppression of the conjunctions "or" and "and," which gives a very quaint air to his strings of synonyms. But an example will do more here than much analysis:β
"And why then should baseness of birth be objected to any man? Who thinks worse of Tully for being Arpinas, an upstart? or Agathocles, that Sicilian King, for being a potter's son? Iphicrates and Marius were meanly born. What wise man thinks better of any person for his nobility? as he[64] said in Machiavel, omnes codem patre nati, Adam's sons, conceived all and born in sin, etc. We are by nature all as one, all alike, if you see us naked; let us wear theirs, and they our clothes, and what's the difference? To speak truth, as Bale did of P. Schalichius, I more esteem thy worth, learning, honesty, than the nobility; honour thee more that thou art a writer, a doctor of divinity, than earl of the Hunnes, baron of Skradine, or hast title to such and such provinces, etc. Thou art more fortunate and great (so Jovius writes to Cosmus Medices, then Duke of Florence) for thy virtues than for thy lovely wife and happy children, friends, fortunes, or great Duchy of Tuscany. So I account thee, and who doth not so indeed? Abdalonymus was a gardener, and yet by Alexander for his virtues made King of Syria. How much better is it to be born of mean parentage and to excel in worth, to be morally noble, which is preferred before that natural nobility by divines, philosophers, and politicians, to be learned, honest, discreet, well qualified to be fit for any manner of employment in country and commonwealth, war and peace, than to be degeneres Neoptolemi as so many brave nobles are, only wise because rich, otherwise idiots, illiterate, unfit for any manner of service? Udalricus, Earl of Cilia, upbraided John Huniades with the baseness of his birth; but he replied, In te Ciliensis comitatus turpiter exstinguitur, in me gloriose Bistricensis exoritur; thine earldom is consumed with riot; mine begins with honour and renown. Thou hast had so many noble ancestors; what is that to thee? Vix ea nostra voco; when thou art a disard[65] thyself, quid prodest Pontice longo stemmate censeri? etc. I conclude, hast thou a sound body and a good soul, good bringing up? Art thou virtuous, honest, learned, well qualified, religious? Are thy conditions good? Thou art a true nobleman, perfectly noble though born of Thersites, dummodo tu sis AeacidΓ¦ similis non natus sed factus, noble ΞΊΞ±Ο' ΡξοΟΞ·Ξ½, for neither sword, nor fire, nor water, nor sickness, nor outward violence, nor the devil himself can take thy good parts from thee. Be not ashamed of thy birth then; thou art a gentleman all the world over, and shalt be honoured, whenas he, strip him of his fine clothes, dispossess him of his wealth, is a funge[66] (which Polynices in his banishment found true by experience, gentry was not esteemed), like a piece of coin in another country, that no man will take, and shall be contemned. Once more, though thou be a barbarian born at Tontonteac, a villain, a slave, a Saldanian negro, or a rude Virginian in Dasamonquepeuc,[67] he a French monsieur, a Spanish don, a seignior of Italy, I care not how descended, of what family, of what orderβbaron, count, princeβif thou be well qualified and he not but a degenerate Neoptolemus, I tell thee in a word thou art a man and he is a beast."
[64] Burton, with others of the time, constantly wrote "he" as the equivalent of the classical demonstratives. Modern, but not better, use prefers "the man," or something similar.
[65] A "dizzard" = a blockhead. Said to be connected with "dizzy."
[66] Fungus, mushroom.
[67] Saldania is Saldanha Bay. As for Tontonteac and Dasamonquepeuc, I shall imitate the manly frankness of the boy in Henry V., and say, "I do not know what is the French for fer, and ferret, and firk."
Such, in his outward aspects, is Burton; but of him, even more than of most writers, it may be said that a brick of the house is no sample. Only by reading him in the proper sense, and that with diligence, can his great learning, his singular wit and fancy, and the general view of life and of things belonging to life, which informs and converts to a whole his learning, his wit, and his fancy alike, be properly conceived. 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.
Probably, however, among those who can taste old authors, there will always be a friendly but irreconcilable difference as to the merits of Fuller and Burton, when compared together. There never can be any among such as to the merits of Fuller, considered in himself. Like Burton, he was a clerk in orders; but his literary practice, though more copious than that of the author of The Anatomy, divorced him less from the discharge of his professional duties. He was born, like Dryden, but twenty-two years earlier, in 1608, at Aldwinkle in Northamptonshire, and in a parsonage there, but of the other parish (for there are two close together). He was educated at Cambridge, and, being made prebendary of Salisbury, and vicar of Broadwindsor, almost as soon as he could take orders, seemed to be in a fair way of preferment. He worked as a parish priest up to 1640, the year of the beginning of troubles, and the year of his first important book, The Holy War. But he was a staunch Royalist, though by no means a bigot, and he did not, like other men of his time, see his way to play Mr. Facing-both-ways. For a time he was a preacher in London, then he followed the camp as chaplain to the victorious army of Hopton, in the west, then for a time again he was stationary at Exeter, and after the ruin of the Royal cause he returned to London, where, though he did not recover his benefices, he was leniently treated, and even, in 1655, obtained license to preach. Nevertheless, the Restoration would probably have brought him promotion, but he lived not long enough to receive it, dying on the 15th of August 1661. He was an extremely industrious writer, publishing, besides the work already mentioned, and not a few minor pieces (The Holy and Profane State, Thoughts and Contemplations in
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