What cannot Praise effect in Mighty Minds, When Flattery Sooths, and when Ambition Blinds! - John Dryden

The midwife laid her hand on his thick skull,
With this prophetic blessing — Be thou dull; 60
Drink, swear, and roar, forbear no lewd delight
Fit for thy bulk, do anything but write.
Thou art of lasting make, like thoughtless men,
A strong nativity — but for the pen;
Eat opium, mingle arsenic in thy drink, 65
Still thou mayest live, avoiding pen and ink.
I see, I see, ’tis counsel given in vain,
For treason, botched in rhyme, will be thy bane;
Rhyme is the rock on which thou art to wreck,
’Tis fatal to thy fame and to thy neck.

I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

The wretched have no friends.