“ONAELIA:You are like common beadles, apt to lashAlmost to death poor wretches not worth striking,But fawn with slavish flattery on damned vicesSo great men act them. You clap hands at those,Where the true poet indeed doth scorn to gildA gaudy tomb with glory of his verse,Which coffins stinking carrion.”Thomas Dekker The Noble Spanish SoldierThe Noble Spanish Soldier (1622)
“Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?O sweet content!Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplex'd?O punishment!”Thomas Dekker Poem Sweet Content http://www.bartleby.com/101/204.html
“A wise man poorIs like a sacred book that’s never read,—To himself he lives, and to all else seems dead.This age thinks better of a gilded foolThan of a threadbare saint in wisdom’s school.”Thomas Dekker Old FortunatusOld Fortunatus (1599).