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'—
'That prince who may do nothing but what's just
Rules but by leave, and takes his crown on trust'—
the sentiment is remarkably 'thorough'; but the italics indicate a quotation, and we can hardly be wrong in tracing the lines to the 'Thyestes' of Seneca:—
'Ubicunque tantum honeste dominanti licet,
Precario regnatur.'