Editing Robert Burton (section)

==Appointments and the ''Anatomy''==
===Offices at St Thomas's, Walesby, and Seagrave===
[[File:South porch date stone at St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford.jpg|thumb|Burton's arms above the [[gable]] of the south [[porch]], at [[St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford|St Thomas the Martyr's Church]], Oxford.]]
Burton initially struggled to find any patrons for promotion out of the university,{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} but after some time, he managed to obtain an ecclesiastical office in the [[benefice|living]] of [[St Thomas the Martyr's Church, Oxford]], located in the western suburb of Oxford. He was nominated to this by the [[wikt:dean and chapter|dean and chapter]] of Christ Church on 29 November 1616.{{sfn|VCH, City of Oxford, "Churches"|1974|loc=[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol4/pp369-412#p254 par. 254]}}{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} He was licensed to preach on 3 December 1618.{{sfn|CCEd, Robert Burton}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=92}} Burton held this vicarage at St Thomas's, until his death; he was responsible for the building or rebuilding of the church's south porch in 1621, where his arms were placed on the gable.{{sfn|VCH, City of Oxford, "Churches"|1974|loc=[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol4/pp369-412#p254 par. 254]}}

In 1624, Lady [[Frances Cecil, Countess of Exeter (died 1663)|Frances Cecil, dowager Countess of Exeter]] presented Burton to the [[Lincolnshire]] benefice of [[Walesby, Lincolnshire|Walesby]]. Burton was perhaps the tutor of Frances' son, Robert Smith.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} Burton chose not to reside in Walesby, though he probably visited it at some point. He took little interest in the daily affairs of the parish—all the parish records were signed by his curate, Thomas Benson—but did win for it nine acres of land which had been taken by Frances's predecessor.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=21}} Burton resigned from this post in 1631.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} In the 1632 edition of the ''Anatomy'', appended below a mention of his Walesby appointment, Burton tersely added: "Lately resigned for some special reasons".{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=21}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=93}} After his resignation, Lady Frances temporarily turned over the duty to appoint Burton's successor to her friend, the [[Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex|first Earl of Middlesex]], suggesting that Burton resigned over Middlesex's pressure to appoint his own favourite.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=93}}

In 1632, shortly after this resignation from Walesby, Burton was presented to a much more valuable office by his patron, [[John Berkeley, 1st Baron Berkeley of Stratton|Lord Berkeley]]: the [[rector (ecclesiastical)|rectorship]] of [[Seagrave]].{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} Berkeley had been a patron of Burton since at least 1621, when Burton dedicated the ''Anatomy'' to Lord Berkeley. Their relationship may have begun even earlier, in 1619, when Berkeley matriculated from Christ Church, and perhaps entered the tutelage of Burton.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=10}} In any case, on 3 September 1624, Lord Berkeley granted Burton the advowson (i.e. the right to decide the next occupant) of the wealthy living of Seagrave. This right necessitated that the holder of the advowson pick a candidate other than himself, but three days later Burton assigned three of his family members to this position, so he could procure his own future appointment. On 15 June 1632, promptly after the previous incumbent was buried, the relatives presented him to the office.{{sfn|Holtgen|1976|pp=130–131}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|pp=21–22}} Burton did not cultivate much of a reputation as a preacher while at Seagrave, choosing not to publish any of his sermons, but discharged the pastoral and charitable roles of the rectory dutifully and punctually.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=24}} Burton probably visited Lindley often while at Seagrave, as the villages were only 20 miles apart.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} The office was the most valuable Burton ever held; in 1650, the rectory was valued at £100.{{efn|Adjusting for inflation, {{Inflation|UK|100|1650|fmt=eq|cursign=£}}.{{inflation-fn|UK|name-list-style=amp}}}}{{sfn|Holtgen|1976|p=133}}

===University life===
Other than that afforded to him by the Countess of Exeter and Lord Berkeley, Burton received little preferment. Because of this, even as he received appointments outside the university, Burton remained an Oxford student for the rest of his life. Burton seems to have been, at first, unhappy with this situation;{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} in the 1621 edition of the ''Anatomy'', Burton wrote that his "hopes were still frustrate, and I left behind, as a Dolphin on shore, confined to my Colledge, as [[Diogenes]] to his tubbe".{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=93}} This exasperation seems to have been passing; by the ''Anatomy''{{'s}} final edition, he had revised the passage in praise of his "monastick life [...] sequestered from those tumults & troubles of the world", unindebted for his lack of preferment.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=93}} Bamborough has gone as far as to claim it is unlikely Burton ever truly wanted to leave the college he spoke so highly of{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} as the "most flourishing College of Europe", one which "can brag with [[Paolo Giovio|Jovius]], almost, in that splendor of [[Vatican City|Vaticanish]] retirement, confined to the company of the distinguished".{{sfn|Burton|1927|p=13}} The 1602 reopening of the [[Bodleian Library]] at Oxford, which by 1620 held over 16,000 volumes, gave some truth to Burton's proud comparison of the scholarship at Oxford to that of Jovius's Vatican.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=16}}

Burton did not spend all his time in this "Vaticanish retirement" as a scholar. He held various minor offices in Oxford. On three occasions–in 1615, 1617, and 1618–Burton was chosen to be the clerk of the Market, one of two MA students tasked with regulating the various goods of Oxford's markets. Now a [[sinecure]], the office was an important institution in Burton's time.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|pp=96–97}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=20}} This occupation has been cited by two biographers, O'Connell and Nochimson, to suggest, contrary to the bookish image given by his ''Anatomy'', Burton had some knowledge of the day-to-day affairs of Oxford.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|pp=96–97}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=20}} Perhaps more befitting his image, on 27 August 1624, Burton became the librarian of [[Christ Church Library]].{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} The office was a recent creation—the first librarian was appointed in 1599, and library had been founded only a half-century earlier—but a recent donation by an Otho Nicholson{{efn|Otho Nicholson was a wealthy lawyer of the [[Court of Chancery]], who made a large donation to the library in the early 17th century: £800 for the building and £100 for books.{{sfn|Christ Church, "History of the Library"}}{{sfn|Scadding|1874|pp=600–601}}}} had ensured it was a profitable one, tripling the incumbent's wages to 10s a term. The duties, however, were sparse—limited to enforcing the loose regulations of the institution, and opening and closing it at the appropriate times—probably allowing Burton more than enough time to accumulate the erudition exhibited in the ''Anatomy''.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=15}}{{sfn|Christ Church, "History of the Library"}} Burton held this position until his death.{{sfn|Bamborough|2009}} In 1635, painter [[Gilbert Jackson]] produced an oil portrait of Burton; this painting is now held at Brasenose College, with a copy at Christ Church.{{sfn|Butler|1909|p=16}}{{efn|Some aspersions have been cast over Jackson's authorship of the Burton portrait (alongside a [[Wadham College, Oxford|Wadham College]] portrait of [[Warden of Wadham College|Warden]], [[William Smyth (academic administrator)|William Smyth]]) by British historian [[Reginald Lane Poole]] because–as Jackson's biographer Arianne Burnette has put it–the portraits exhibit an unusually "flat, archaic [[wikt:handling|handling]] and lack of characterization" when compared with Jackson's other work.{{sfn|Burnette|2010}}}}

===Publication of the ''Anatomy''===
{| class="wikitable floatleft"
|+ Bibliographical information for Burton's ''Anatomy''.{{sfn|Duff|1923|pp=81–82}}{{sfn|Blair|Faulkner|Kiessling|1989|p=xxxviii}}
|-
! Date
! Edition
! Binding
! Location
! {{abbr|Words|Total number of words in the edition, both marginalia and main text.}}
|-
|1621
|1st
|[[4to]]
|Oxford
|353,369
|-
|1624
|2nd
|[[folio|fo]]
|Oxford
|423,983
|-
|1628
|3rd
|[[folio|fo]]
|Oxford
|476,855
|-
|1632
|4th
|[[folio|fo]]
|Oxford
|505,592
|-
|1638
|5th
|[[folio|fo]]
|Oxford
|514,116
|-
|1651
|6th
|[[folio|fo]]
|Oxford
|516,384
|-
|1660
|7th
|[[folio|fo]]
|London
|516,384
|-
|1676
|8th
|[[folio|fo]]
|London
|516,384
|}

Whatever other activities he engaged in, composing the ''Anatomy'' was the most important pursuit and accomplishment of Burton's life.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|pp=24–25}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=98}} Burton, as he claims in the preface, was "as desirous to suppress my labours in this kind, as others have been to press and publish theirs", but admits that melancholy is the subject upon which he is "fatally driven", and so he was compelled to compose the work.{{sfn|Burton|1927|p=27}} Burton left no record of when he began his work on the ''Anatomy''. O'Connell speculates the project grew piecemeal, with research begun in his twenties, and the work well on its way by his thirties.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=25}} Burton explicitly states that the study of melancholy was a lifelong fascination of his, and regularly "deducted from the main channel of my studies".{{sfn|Burton|1927|p=27}} However long the work took, he had certainly concluded it by 5 December 1620, aged 43, when he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader".{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=25}}

[[File:Portrait of Democritus Junior in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, 1628, 2nd edition.jpg|thumb|Engraving of Burton, under the name Democritus Junior, in the frontispiece to his ''Anatomy of Melancholy''. This engraving is from the 1628 edition.]]

The book was printed in 1621 and, despite Burton's indication in the ''Anatomy'' of troubles finding a publisher, it quickly sold well.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|pp=99–100}} Wood wrote that the publisher, Henry Cripps, made such a "great profit" off the book that he "got an estate by it".{{sfn|Wood|1815}}{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=25}} Burton's subject was well chosen; similar treatises by [[Timothie Bright]] and [[Thomas Wright (writer)|Thomas Wright]] had gone through several editions soon after their publication.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=100}} Though Burton never divulged the extent of his profits, the size of his estate and library at death suggests they were considerable.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|pp=100–101}} Burton printed the Anatomy under the pseudonym of "Democritus Junior", alluding to the Greek pre-Socratic philosopher, [[Democritus]], sometimes known as [[List of nicknames of philosophers|the Laughing Philosopher]]. The use of an established classical figure in a pseudonym was common practice in Burton's time, used to ensure the reader held no negative preconceptions about the author.{{sfn|Dewey|1970|p=3–4}} Burton did not resolutely stick to this pseudonymity; the first edition betrayed it as he signed the "Conclusion to the Reader" with his real name, and though this was removed in later editions, the portrait of Burton added from the third edition onwards hardly preserved his anonymity.{{sfn|Nicol|1948|p=200}}

Burton did not rest on his laurels after the first printing, continually editing and improving the work throughout his life.{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=98}} The first edition of Burton's ''Anatomy'' was, with marginalia, over 350,000 words long; by his final edition this count came to over 500,000.{{sfn|Blair|Faulkner|Kiessling|1989|p=xxxviii}} The additions were largest for the second and third editions;{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=98}} the original [[quarto]] volume had to be expanded to a [[folio]] for the second edition (1624) to accommodate the expansions.{{sfn|Duff|1923|p=82}} For the third edition (1628), an allegorical frontispiece was added, engraved by Christian Le Blon, with a portrait of Burton atop his moniker "Democritus Junior".{{sfn|Mueller|1949|p=1074}}{{efn|Various minor additions were added to the frontispiece over the course of its printing, including in a [[wikt:skullcap|skull cap]] added to Burton's portrait in the fifth edition. This last addition has caused some academic consternation over its possible significance.{{sfn|Mueller|1949|p=1074}}}} After these two additions, Burton vowed: "{{lang|la|Ne quid nimis}} [do not do too much]. I will not hereafter add, alter, or retract; I have done." However, once again, Burton returned to the ''Anatomy'', producing two more editions in 1634 and 1638. Shortly before his death in 1640, Burton entrusted an annotated copy of the ''Anatomy'' to his publisher, which was published posthumously in 1651.{{sfn|O'Connell|1986|p=1}} In total, Burton made contributions to six editions.{{sfn|Duff|1923|p=82}}{{sfn|Nochimson|1974|p=98}} Two more reprints of the ''Anatomy'' were made before the end of the century.{{sfn|Duff|1923|p=81}}