4] 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