He stood as mute as poor Macleane.'
This couplet has been recently explained by Gray's latest editor, Dr. Bradshaw, to be a reference to Maclean's only observation when called to receive sentence. 'My Lord [he said], I cannot speak.'
[80] He was popularly known as 'Peter Shamble.' He afterwards became Earl of Harrington.
[81] Elizabeth Neale, here referred to, was a well-known personage in St. James's Street, where, for many years, she kept a fruit shop. From Lady Mary Coke's Letters and Journals, 1889, vol. ii., p. 427, Betty appears to have assiduously attended the debates in the House of Commons being characterized as a 'violent Politician, & always in the opposition.' In Mason's Heroic Epistle to Sir William Chambers, Knight, she is spoken of as 'Patriot Betty.' She survived until 1797, when her death, at the age of 67, is recorded in the Gentleman's Magazine.
[82] Walpole to Montagu, 23 June, 1750.
[83] Nevertheless, when this 'Roi en Exil' shortly afterwards died, Walpole erected a tablet in St. Anne's Churchyard, Soho, to his memory, with the following inscription:—
'Near this place is interred
Theodore, King of Corsica;
Who died in this parish, Dec. 11, 1756,
Immediately after leaving the King's-Bench-Prison,
By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency;
In consequence of which he registered
His Kingdom of Corsica
For the use of his Creditors.
'The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings
Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and Kings.
But Theodore this moral learn'd, ere dead;