Accident of an accident, a phrase first used by Lord Thurlow. During a debate on Lord Sandwich's administration of Greenwich Hospital, the Duke of Grafton taunted Thurlow, then Lord Chancellor, on his humble origin. Thurlow rose from the woolsack, and, advancing towards the duke, declared he was amazed at his grace's speech. "The noble duke," he cried, in a burst of oratorical scorn, "cannot look before him, behind him, and on either side of him without seeing some noble peer who owes his seat in this House to his successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honorable to owe it to these as to being the accident of an accident?