More specifically concerning: Robert Burton
Crambe repetita (3)
20 December 2003, around 8.12.
Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, I.2.ii.1.
Crambe repetita (21)
2 January 2012, around 14.09.
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ‘Democritus to the Reader’.
afflatus criticus
11 February 2012, around 9.26.
This is as far as we can get on the assumption that the scholar and the man of taste are connected by nothing more than a common interest in literature. If this assumption is true, the high percentage of sheer futility in all criticism should be honestly faced, for the percentage can only increase with […]
middling sort
28 September 2025, around 13.38.
I have been told that several people claim, that I have not understood Spinoza’s theory at all. I have heard this from several quarters, but nobody has been able to tell me what those who make this judgment base it on. Thus, I cannot answer them precisely, or examine if I ought to give in […]
Adversaria (31)
31 October 2025, around 4.16.
‘Ignorance will be the dupe of cunning, and passion the slave of sophistry and declamation.’ —Federalist Papers (No. 58) ‘There are no straight lines, neither in things nor in language. Syntax is the set of necessary detours that are created in each case to reveal the life in things’ —Gilles Deleuze (Essays Critical and Clinical, […]
dizzardry
2 November 2025, around 15.11.
Quis tam avidus librorum helluo, who can read them? As already, we shall have a vast chaos and confusion of books, we are oppressed with them, our eyes ache with reading, our fingers with turning. —Robert Burton (Anatomy of Melancholy, ‘Democritus Junior to the Reader’) Trying to do too much background reading, with only a […]
encompassing
30 December 2025, around 17.31.
Out of humane authors take these few cautions, Know thyself. Be contented with thy lot. Trust not wealth, beauty, nor parasites, they will bring thee to destruction. Have peace with all men, war with vice. Be not idle. Look before you leap. Beware of Had I wist. Honour thy parents, speak well of friends. Be […]
contrivances
7 January 2026, around 4.54.
‘St. John the Baptist (copy)’, by Hans Bildung, ca. 1511. Balancing the ledger of books for the year, looking ahead. Forecasting. Looking back, the past year was a busy one for reading, and I made some headway on some of my reading ‘projects’, although calling them that perhaps honors them with too much coherence – […]
motes and beams
11 February 2026, around 4.30.
When I was a child, I wanted to live in a pine forest. Or, to be more accurate, a pine plantation. […] The tight ranks of conifer trees, planted so close together that most of their branches die for lack of light, and which acidify the soil for miles around, are hated by ecologists, landscape […]
in the weeds
20 February 2026, around 4.47.
Excerpt from Gilbert Jackson’s portrait of Robert Burton, ca. 1635 Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy is a book that invites background reading, both in terms of books that Burton himself might have encountered and supplemental reading to loosen the knots an unsuspecting reader might tangle themselves when reading unforewarned. Obviously, the best thing to do to […]
academical lol-poops
9 April 2026, around 9.48.
Decay of learning. Before the warr wee had scholars that made a thorough search in scholasticall and polemicall divinity, in humane authors, and naturall philosophy. But now scholars studie these things not more than what is just necessary to carry them throug the exercises of their respective colleges and the Universitie. Their aime is not […]