he Testator and acknowledged by him some few days before his
death to be his last Will Ita Testor John Morris S Th D. Prebendari' Eccl
Chri' Oxon Feb. 3, 1639.

Probatum fuit Testamentum suprascriptum, &c. 11 deg. 1640 Juramento Willmi
Burton Fris' et Executoris cui &c. de bene et fideliter administrand.
&c. coram Mag'ris Nathanaele Stephens Rectore Eccl. de Drayton, et
Edwardo Farmer, Clericis, vigore commissionis, &c.

The only work our author executed was that now reprinted, which probably
was the principal employment of his life. Dr. Ferriar says, it was
originally published in the year 1617; but this is evidently a mistake;
[5]the first edition was that printed in 4to, 1621, a copy of which is at
present in the collection of John Nichols, Esq., the indefatigable
illustrator of the _History of Leicestershire_; to whom, and to Isaac Reed,
Esq., of Staple Inn, this account is greatly indebted for its accuracy. The
other impressions of it were in 1624, 1628, 1632, 1638, 1651-2, 1660, and
1676, which last, in the titlepage, is called the eighth edition.

The copy from which the present is reprinted, is that of 1651-2; at the
conclusion of which is the following address:

"TO THE READER.

"Be pleased to know (Courteous Reader) that since the last Impression
of this Book, the ingenuous Author of it is deceased, leaving a Copy
of it exactly corrected, with several considerable Additions by his
own hand; this Copy he committed to my care and custody, with
directions to have those Additions inserted in the next Edition; which
in order to his command, and the Publicke Good, is faithfully
performed in this last Impression."

H. C. (_i.e. HEN. CRIPPS._)

The following testimonies of various authors will serve to show the
estimation in which this work has been held:--

"The ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY, wherein the author hath piled up variety of
much excellent learning. Scarce any book of philology in our land hath, in
so short a time, passed so many editions."--_Fuller's Worthies_, fol. 16.

"'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.

"If you never saw BURTON UPON MELANCHOLY, printed 1676, I pray look into
it, and read the ninth page of his Preface, 'Democritus to the Reader.'
There is something there which