I have given some indication then of the general trend of the _Anatomy
of Melancholy_, cutting my coat according to my cloth, and I hope that
I have made clear the strong, straightforward manner of the man, his
lucidity and patient industry, his uncompromising truth telling, the
sincere and scholarly tang in him. Certainly his reputation though it
can never be a popular one, is well established in the judgment of the
thoughtful. In his book, though it seems to be a triangle, he does not
shift feebly from track to track, but follows his light.
Like many another, great and small, he tries to find for himself the
greatest thing in life and he finds it in things educational. But
mark you, not in the mere acquisition of facts acid and meaningless,
not the outside of things. Something altogether different in fact.
At bottom, “to be chained together with so many good authors,” is
the most glorious of blessings. But to what end? That’s the point.
Certainly not that there may be a sort of shining in society, certainly
not that we may become one of those bewildered dogmatists scientific
and religious, and certainly not that we may be classed with those
superior and sneering ones of which Nietzsche speaks. But this. That
we may come to the discipline of self; that we shall be such men that
there may be mutual understanding and that one shall think aloud in the
company of his fellow; that we shall be glad enough to work truly and
nobly and without ceasing; that we shall come to heartily believe in
self-reliance and independence and in freedom. For the happy man is he
who realizes that true education is self-discipline and that the best
citizen is the man who remains sane in a frothy world, who is a center
of order in a scene of disorder. So comes this notable passage:
“Amongst exercises or receptions of the mind within-doors, there
is none so general, so aptly to be applied to all sorts of men, so
fit and proper to expel idleness and melancholy, as that of study.
What so full of content as to read, walk, and see maps, pictures,
statues, jewels, marbles, which some so much magnify as those that
Phidias made of old, so exquisite and pleasing to be beheld, that,
as Chrysostom thinketh, ‘if any man be sickly, troubled in mind, or
that cannot sleep for grief, and shall but stand over against one
of Phidias’ images, he will forget all care, or whatsoever else may
molest him, in an instant.’ There be those as much taken with Michael
Angelo’s, Raphael de Urbino’s Francesco Francia’s pieces, and many
of those Italian and Dutch painters, which were excellent in their
age; and esteem of it as a most pleasing sight to view those neat
architectures, devices, scutcheons, coats of arms, read such books,
to peruse old coins of several sorts in a fair gallery, artificial
works, perspective glasses, old reliques, Roman antiquities, variety
of colours. A good picture is _falsa veritas, et muta poesis_, and
though (as Vives saith), _artificatia delectant, sed mox fastidimus_,
artificial toys please but for a time; yet who is he that will not
be moved with them for the present? When Achilles was tormented and
sad for the loss of his dear friend Patroclus, his mother Thetis
brought him a most elaborate and curious buckler made by Vulcan,
in which were engraven sun, moon, stars, planets, sea, land, men
fighting, running, riding, women scolding, hills, dales, towns,
castles, brooks, rivers, trees, etc.; with many pretty landskips
and perspective pieces; with sight of which he was infinitely
delighted....
“King James (1605), when he came to see our university at Oxford, and
amongst other edifices, now went to view that famous library, renewed
by Sir Thomas Bodley, in imitation of Alexander, at his departure,
brake out into that noble speech: ‘If I were not a king, I would be
an university man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if
I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than
that library, and to be chained together with so many good authors,
_et mortuis magistris_.’ So sweet is the delight of study, the more
learning they have--as he that hath a dropsy, the more drinks, the
thirstier he is--the more they covet to learn, and the last day is
_prioris discipulus_; harsh at first, learning is _radices amaroe_,
but _fructus dulces_, according to that of Isocrates, pleasant at
last; the longer they live, the more they are enamored with the
Muses. Heinsius, the keeper of the library at Leyden in Holland, was
mewed up in it all the year long; and that which, to thy thinking,
should have bred a loathing, caused in him a greater liking. ‘I no
sooner,’ saith he, ‘come into the library, but I bolt the door to
me, excluding Lust, Ambition, Avarice, and all such vices, whose
nurse is Idleness, their mother Ignorance, and Melancholy herself;
and in the very lap of eternity, amongst so many divine souls, I
take my seat, with so lofty a spirit and sweet content, that I pity
all our great ones and rich men, that know not this happiness.’ I
am not ignorant in the meantime, notwithstanding this which I have
said, how barbarously and basely our ruder gentry esteem of libraries
and books, how they neglect and contemn so great a treasure, so
inestimable a benefit, as Aesop’s cock did the jewel he found in the
dunghill; and all through error, ignorance, and want of education.
And ’tis a wonder withal to observe how much they will vainly cast
away in unnecessary expenses, what in hawks, hounds, lawsuits, vain
building, gormandising, drinking, sports, plays, pastimes, etc.”
Then we come to the final words, the gist of the book, the central
core, the grand discovery, and if you are the kind of man who has gone
through the world with open eyes, you cannot do other than have arrived
at the same conclusion, though the thing must have seemed so simple
that you rejected it as unworthy. Yet at bottom all truths are simple
and self-evident. Or, if you have not framed something of the kind
for yourself, but have carried an attentive ear and a retentive mind,
doubtless it will come to you that you have heard your grandmother say
much the same thing. And here is the great secret of happiness, because
it is the anodyne to keep man from melancholy.
“Be not solitary, be not idle.”
Then, in capitals:
“SPERATE MISERI,
CAVETE FELICES.”