A writer's style, if it have distinction, is the outcome of
a hundred styles.
Though a generous borrower of the ancients, Herrick appears to have been
exceptionally free from the influence of contemporary minds. Here and
there in his work are traces of his beloved Ben Jonson, or fleeting
impressions of Fletcher, and in one instance a direct infringement
on Suckling; but the sum of Herrick's obligations of this sort is
inconsiderable.
This indifference to other writers of his time, this insularity, was
doubtless his loss. The more exalted imagination of Vaughan or Marvell
or Herbert might have taught him a deeper note than he sounded in his
purely devotional poems. Milton, of course, moved in a sphere apart.
Shakespeare, whose personality still haunted the clubs and taverns which
Herrick frequented on his first going up to London, failed to lay any
appreciable spell upon him. That great name, moreover, is a jewel which
finds no setting in Herrick's rhyme. His general reticence relative to
brother poets is extremely curious when we reflect on his penchant for
addressing four-line epics to this or that individual.
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