'To get thine ends, lay bashfulness aside, _Who fears to ask doth teach to be deny'd_'--
the line he italicises is from Seneca's 'Hippolytus' (ll. 594, 5)--'Qui timide rogat ... docet negare.' So too in 'Loss from the Least'--
'Great men by small means oft are overthrown; _He's lord of thy life who contemns his own_'--
the quotation is again from Seneca, 'Ep.' 4--'Quisquis vitam suam contempsit tuae dominus est.'
If we turn now to Herrick's borrowings from Tacitus we may take as a good example his couplet headed, 'Things mortal still mutable':--
'_Things are uncertain, and the more we get The more on icy pavements we are set._'
Which is really a wonderful rendering of a saying of the Emperor Tiberius reported in 'Annals' I. 72--'Cuncta mortalium incerta, quantoque plus adeptus foret, tanto se magis in lubrico.' Another good instance is supplied by 'The Eyes'--
''Tis a known principle in war, The eyes be first that conquered are'--
where Herrick's not very lucid English is explained by 'De Moribus German.' 43--'Primi in omnibus praeliis oculi vincuntur.' Or again, we may take 'Revenge'--a rather longer verse than those we have hitherto quoted:--
'_Man's disposition is for to requite An injury before a benefit: Thanksgiving is a burden and a pain, Revenge is pleasing to us, as our gain_'--
where Herrick's original is Tacitus, 'Hist.' IV., 3:--'Tanto proclivius est iniuriae quam beneficio vicem exsolvere; quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu habetur.'
Herrick's obligations to Sallust are less important than those to Seneca and Tacitus. In one case he mentions the historian by name:--
'Empires of kings are now, and ever were, As Sallust saith, coincident to fear.'
The reference being to the spurious 'Epist. ad Cai. Caesar. de Rep. Ordinanda.' 'Consultation'--
'Consult ere thou begin'st; that done, go on With all wise speed for execution'--
is apparently suggested by the 'Nam et prius quam incipias consulto, et ubi consulueris mature facto opus est,' of the opening of the 'Catiline.' There are some three or four other reminiscences about equally close, but they are hardly worth special mention.
As might be expected, many of Herrick's borrowings, especially those from Tacitus, have to do with politics, and commentators who have mistaken his jottings from his common-place book for the expression of his own principles have been rather confused by their alternate leaning to absolutism and its reverse. Thus, in 'A King and no King'--