If we turn to Herrick's debt to more poetical writers we find that he takes a few phrases from Catullus (his obligations to whom have been absurdly exaggerated), about as much from Tibullus, and a little also from Propertius and Juvenal. To his poem entitled 'The Vision' he transfers from Virgil ('Aeneid' i. 315-20) the charming description of the dress of the Spartan huntress, in which Venus encounters Aeneas. From Horace, whom he occasionally imitates, he borrows many single lines, for the most part acknowledging them by italics. To Ovid his indebtedness for phrases and turns of thought is still more marked. On the whole, however, his chief obligation is to Martial, who supplied him not only with many of his epigrams, both good and bad, but also with suggestions for more important poems. Thus, in his second poem ('To his Muse') he is inspired by Martial I. iv.; a phrase in his third ('To his Book') is suggested by the same original; the reference to Brutus in the fourth is from Martial XI. xvi.; and the next poem is a paraphrase from X. xix. All these poems have to do with his book, and it is needless to say that the amount of borrowing in them is very exceptional; but it was from Martial VII. lxxxix. that Herrick took his lovely 'Go, Happy Rose'; one of his poems on Julia is from Martial IV. xxii.; 'The Lily and the Crystal' is suggested by the same poet (VIII. lxviii. 5-8), and there are numerous smaller borrowings, altogether apart from the epigrams.
Of Greek, it is probable that Herrick's knowledge was only slight. There is even some slight reason to believe that his acquaintance with Greek authors was mainly derived from Latin translations. 'The Cruel Maid' is a very close imitation of part of the twenty-third Idyll of Theocritus; the only other Greek poetry which plays a serious part in his verse is the pseudo-Anacreon. To the collection of sportive poems, whose very slightness is their charm, which passed under Anacreon's name, Herrick's obligations are really immense. It is not only that several of his most charming poems—'The Cheat of Cupid,' 'The Wounded Cupid,' 'On Himself,' 'Upon His Grey Hairs,' etc.—are directly translated or closely imitated from the Greek; but we feel in the case of these lyrics that they really helped the development of Herrick's own gifts in a way in which none of his Latin storehouses even approached. Thus it would be easy to make out a fairly long list of poems, in which he comes so close to the spirit of 'Anacreon' that the curious student of such matters is sent hunting through the pages of his Bergk in a vain search for originals which never existed.
Herrick went late to the University, and, despite the extreme propriety of the language as to his reading which we find in his letters to his goldsmith-uncle when he was in need of a remittance, it is difficult to believe that he was ever a very earnest or laborious student. Thus the list of authors from whom he borrowed comes rather as a surprise. It is probable that a little discount must be taken off the amount of erudition with which it might incline us to credit him. His poems make it absolutely certain that he was steeped in the works of Ben Jonson and well acquainted with Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' and the Essays of Montaigne. Now Jonson, Burton, and Montaigne, as it is hardly necessary to remark, all three drew inspiration from the classics, and it would not be difficult to prove that at times Herrick's quotations came to him filtered through these authors, and not directly from the fountain head. This helps us to understand some excursions of the poet which seem unusually far afield. For instance, there can be no doubt that the ultimate original of Herrick's—
'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying'—
is from Ausonius (361, ll. 49-50):—
'Collige, virgo, rosas, dum flos novus, et nova pubes,
Et memor esto aevum sic properare tuum.'
But how came Herrick to be reading an author so little known? The probable answer is that he found the lines in Burton (III. ii. s. sec. 5), where they are quoted with the gloss:—
'A virgin is like a flower, a rose withered on a sudden. Let them take time then while they may, make advantage of youth,' etc.