The melancholy man does not go
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Footnote 57: Mr. Warton intimates, and there can be little doubt of thetruth of his conjecture, that Milton borrowed many of the images in thesetwo fine poems from Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, a book publishedin 1621, and, at sundry times since, abounding in learning, curiousinformation, and pleasantry. Mr. Warton says, that Milton appears to havebeen an attentive reader thereof; and to this assertion I add, of my ownknowledge, that it was a book that Dr. Johnson frequently resorted to,as many others have done, for amusement after the fatigue of study.H.--Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Johnson said, was the only bookthat ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.Boswell's Life, ii. 120.] [Footnote 58: Surely there are precedents enough for the practice,though pessimi exempli, in Milton's favourite tragedian Euripides. ED.] [Footnote 59: Author of the Essay on Study.] [Footnote 60: Algarotti terms it, "gigantesca sublimità Miltoniana."Dr.J.] [Footnote 61: But, says Dr. Warton, it has, throughout, a reference tohuman life and actions. C.] [Footnote 62: The earl of Surrey translated two books of Virgil withoutrhyme; the second and the fourth. J.B.]
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