The fifth said: "I am king of Poland also. I have twice lost my kingdom; but Providence has given me other dominions, where I have done more good than all the Sarmatian kings put together were ever able to do on the banks of the Vistula; I resign myself likewise to Providence; and have come to spend the carnival at Venice."
It now came to the sixth monarch's turn to speak: "Gentlemen," said he, "I am not so great a prince as the rest of you, it is true, but I am, however, a crowned head. I am Theodore,[1] elected king of Corsica. I have had the title of majesty, and am now hardly treated with common civility. I have coined money, and am not now worth a single ducat.
- ↑ This remarkable personage, after having lain in the common prison of the king's bench, for a paltry debt, was cleared by an act of parliament, passed for the relief of insolvent debtors; and the schedule of his effects, delivered for the benefit of his creditors, contained his right and pretensions to the crown of Corsica. He died at London in extreme misery, to the reproach of the English nation, which had at one time acknowledged him as a sovereign prince, and their ally.
A gentleman caused a marble to be erected for him in St. Anne's churchyard, 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 resigned 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 learned ere dead;
Fate poured its lessons on his living head,
Bestowed a kingdom, and denied him bread.
