Shakespeare’s "Pericles" was written in his last great creative phase around 1607 and around the time that Hall became a part of the Shakespeare family. In it he has a doctor character, Lord Cerimon who at one point states his creed of life as follows:
I hold it ever
Virtue and cunning were endowments greater
Than nobleness and riches. Careless heirs
May the two latter darken and expend,
But immortality attends the former,
Making a man a god. ‘Tis know I ever
Have studied physic, through which secret art,
By turning o’er authorities, I have
Together with my practice, made familiar
To me and to my aid the blest infusions
That dwells in vegetives, in metals, stones;
and I can speak of the disturbances
That Nature works, and of her cures;
which doth give me
A more content in course of true delight
Than to be thirsty after tottering honour ......