Evening star., 1925-07-01

Anatomy Of Melancholy" was born in
| 1877 and died in 164i. His tremendous
book Is little read any more, yet to
the curious it has much to offer.
The Anatomy" Is a sort Of hodge
podge, in which one may find all sorts
of specimens of the learning of an
cient days, extending back to the
hGreeks and Romans. Taine says of
him: THE discrimination Of ideas has
| not yet been effected: doctor and poet
man of letters and Savant. he is all
at once: for want Of dams, ideas pour
, like different liquids into the same
vat, with strange spluttering and
hubbling, with an unsavory smell and
| odd effect. But the vat is full and
produced potent compounds which no
preceding age had known
Burton, to use modern slang
phrase, had the blues He is prob
ably one of the most notorious blues
writer in history. II he had lived
today probably he would have gone to
the doctor and had himself treated for
indigestion or hardening of the ar
teries or something.
Certainly no so-caIled normal indi.
vidual" could have produced such a
| monumental mass as this standing
curiosity of literature. He was SAID to
have had melancholy" tempera-
generally agreed that one does not
come by such a disposition except
through physical malfunctionings of
some sort.
Where In the old days men were be-
lieved to have been born with certain
innate positions-"complexio as
they were called-rnen today are re-
garded more leniently by the medical
profession. which believes that LESSONS
in the brain and elsewhere compel us
all to certain actions and ways OF
thinking.
Perhaps If some one had taken Bur
ton to some sort of cure" he would
have saved himself the effort of writ
ing his Anatomy" and us the worry
of reading it.
Sir Thomas Browne, 10 me. is the
most readable Of this trio under dis
cussion. l confess Bacon tires me.
Burton can be read only in small
doses. Perhaps some may feel the
same about Browne, but to me he is
a great writer of English prose.
His subjects, OF course, are some
what heavy, according to popular
opinion. This is particularly true in
his "Religio Medici," which created a
sensation in his day
This "skeptical' work was circulated
privately at first, but made public by
the author after several unauthorized
versions We're circulated. 1t Is queer
mixture of doubts and convictions
one which the present age can view
with equanimity, but which went on
the black list" of it's age 1t may still
be there. / do not know.
What we Of today are interested in
Is the mans ability to handle English.
He did have a certain grand way of
saying things that sticks in memory.
THE iniquity of oblivion blindly
scattereth her poppy, and deals with
the memory of men without distinc-
ton to merit of perpetuity Who
known or whether there be not more
remarkable persons forgot than any
that stand remembered in the known
accounts Of time? Without the favor
OF the everlasting register, the first
man had been as unknown as the last.
Oblivion is not 70 be hired. The
greater part must be content to be
as though they had not been, to be
found in the register of God. not in
the record Of man.
Taine says Of him, NO one has
spoken with more eloquent emotion
OF death, the vast night of forgetfui.
ness, OF the alldevouring pit, Of hui
man vanity. which tries to- create an
ephemeral immortality out of glory or
sculptured stones. No one has reveal.
ed, in more glowing or original ex.
pressions. the poetic sap which flows
through all the minds of the age