16 KEW GARDENS 



dying before his father." He appears to have 

 been not unpopular with the mob, as princes are 

 apt to be who make the money fly ; but history 

 has no good to tell of him, unless one kindly 

 act in his intercession for Flora Macdonald. 

 Scholars and divines duly lamented him with 

 overdone effusions in the Tu Marcellus eris vein ; 

 but these crocodile tears of the Muses are less 

 well-remembered than that uncourtly epitaph 

 that seems to have better expressed the not 

 even lukewarm loyalty of the first Georgian 

 generation : 



Here lies Fred 



Who was alive and is dead. 



Had it been his father, 



I had much rather. 



Had it been his brother, 



Still better than another. 



Had it been his sister, 



No one would have missed her. 



Had it been the whole generation, 



Still better for the nation. 



But since 'tis only Fred, 



Who was alive and is dead, 



There's no more to be said. 



George II. behaved at first not unkindly to 

 his widowed daughter-in-law and grandchildren. 

 He visited the bereaved family, throwing off 

 royal ceremonial, kissed them, wept with them, 



