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The situation indicated by this lengthy document has afforded
matter for a good deal of comment, and not a little foolish
writing. With some it is the old case of Porpora and the blacking
of the boots. Thus Miss Townsend remarks: "Our indignation is
roused at finding a great artist placed in the position of an
upper servant, and required to perform duties almost menial in their
nature." That is essentially a modern view. These things have to be
judged in relation to the ideas of the age. It was only a few years
before this that Johnson had contemptuously thrown away a pair of
boots which some pitying soul had placed at the door of his rooms
at Pembroke. The British mind likes to think of the sturdy
independence of the man who struck the death-blow at patronage in
literature. But Johnson himself had the meanest opinion of fiddlers.
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