Excerpt from Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R. A
It comes to what Sir Joshua used to say, that a man who is at the head of his profession is above it. I remember being at Cosway's, where they were recommending some charitable institution for the relief of decayed artists; and I said I would not be of it, for it was holding out a temptation to idleness, and bringing those into the profession who were not fit for it. Some one who wanted to flatter me observed, 'I wonder you should talk in this manner, who are under such obligations to the art!' I answered immediately, 'If I am to take your compliment as I believe it is meant, I might answer, that it is the art that is under obligations to me, not I to it. Do you suppose that Rubens, Titian, and others were under obligations to the art - they who raised it from obscurity and made it all that it is? What would the art be without these?' The world in general, as Miss Reynolds used to say, with reference to her brother, think no more of a painter than they do of a fiddler or a dancing-master or a piano-forte-maker. And so of a poet.
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