imprudence which had drawn him into his perplexed situation. I must now relate what he lost and for whom. There was a nephew of the Duke of Newcastle who, when the Whigs had broken with the Court and sought to place Lord Chatham at their head, had attached himself particularly to that chieftain. Lord Lincoln,[294] the other nephew of the Duke, had quarrelled, as I have said, indecently and ungratefully with his uncle. Mr. Shelley,[295] the hero of the present episode, had copied that ingratitude, and for no worthier reason than because a peerage, to which he had no pretensions, had not been added to the boons his lavish uncle had already heaped on him, had joined himself to his cousin. But Mr. Pitt was his standard; and, furnishing himself with scraps of that orator’s new-coined diction, he retailed them on the most ordinary occurrences; so that as Mr. Pitt was called _the Great Commoner_, the nickname of _the Little Commoner_ was bestowed on Shelley in ridicule.[296] This insignificant person did Lord Chatham, to gratify Lord Lincoln, design for Treasurer of the Household. Mr. Conway had remonstrated against the dismission of Lord Edgcumbe,[297] who held that staff, insisting that an equivalent, at least, should be given to Lord Edgcumbe, and with his consent. This had passed about a month before the meeting of the Parliament, and Lord Chatham said no more at that time. But six days after the opening of the session, Lord Shelburne, being with Mr. Conway, said, “I wish you would tell me how to write a civil letter to Lord Edgcumbe.” Conway started, and asked on what occasion? “To notify his dismission,” replied the other. Lord Chatham, it seems, had offered a Lordship of the Bedchamber to Lord Edgcumbe, a man of forty-five, very high in the Navy, who had served with reputation in Lord Chatham’s favourite war, and who, into a place only fit for a boy, must have entered below thirteen other boys! Lord Edgcumbe very properly declining such a post, Lord Chatham affected to resent it as an affront to the King, and wrote a verbose notification of the refusal to Mr. Conway, with frequent repetitions of his Majesty’s name and intentions. Conway, wounded at the treatment both of himself and Lord Edgcumbe, wrote a firm answer, justifying the latter.[298] Lord Rockingham, getting wind of this transaction, hurried to Mr. Conway, artfully reminding him that the late Duke of Devonshire, at his death, had recommended Lord Edgcumbe to the Duke of Cumberland; and that Lord Edgcumbe himself had lately, at Mr. Conway’s request, chosen his nephew, Lord Beauchamp,[299] into Parliament.[300] But Lord Chatham’s own conduct exasperated Conway more than any incendiary could. He wrote again to Conway, imputing all to the King’s intentions and to the necessity of accommodation. He could not have assigned a weaker reason. Shelley would not even have a seat in Parliament, for the Duke of Newcastle refused to re-elect him.