31: Walker, _Letters by Eminent Persons_. London, 1813.]

ROBERT BURTON, 1576-1640

Robert Burton, the author of _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, who is
numbered by Dibdin 'among the most marked bibliomaniacs of the age,' was
the second son of Ralph Burton of Lindley in the county of Leicester,
and was born on the 8th of February 1576. He received the early part of
his education at the grammar schools of Nuneaton and Sutton Coldfield.
In 1593 he was admitted a commoner at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in
1599 was elected a student of Christ Church. He took the degree of B.D.
in 1614. The last-named college presented him with the vicarage of St.
Thomas, in the west suburb of Oxford, in 1616, and some years later
George, Lord Berkeley, gave him the rectory of Segrave in
Leicestershire. The first edition of his famous work, _The Anatomy of
Melancholy_, appeared in 1621. Burton, about whose life little is known,
died in his chamber at Christ's Church on the 25th of January 1639-40,
'at, or very near that time,' Anthony a Wood writes, 'which he had some
years before foretold from the calculation of his own nativity. Which
being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper among
themselves, that rather than there should be a mistake in the
calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven thro' a slip about his neck.'
Wood adds that he was buried in the north aisle of Christ Church
Cathedral, and over his grave 'was erected a comely monument on the
upper pillar of the said isle with his bust painted to the life: on the
right hand of which, is the calculation of his nativity, and under the
bust this inscription made by himself; all put up by the care of William
Burton, his brother.

'Paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hic jacet Democritus junior, cui
vitam dedit & mortem Melancholia. Obiit viii. Id. Jan. A.C. MDCXXXIX.'

Burton's monument and bust have been engraved for Nichols's _History and
Antiquities of Leicestershire_, and his portrait hangs in the hall of
Brasenose College.

Wood gives the following character of Burton:--'He was an exact
mathematician, a curious calculator of nativities, a general-read
scholar, a thorough-paced philologist, and one that understood the
surveying of lands well. As he was by many accounted a severe student, a
devourer of authors, a melancholy and humourous person, so by others who
knew him well, a person of great honesty, plain dealing and charity. I
have heard some of the