Serendipity language was by Horace Walpole in 1754. In a letter he wrote to his friend Horace Mann, Walpole explained an unexpected discovery he had made about a (lost) painting of Bianca Cappello by Giorgio Vasari by reference to a Persian fairy tale, "The Three Princes of Serendip". The princes, he told his correspondent, were "always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of". The name comes from "Serendip", an old name for Sri Lanka (Ceylon), hence "Sarandib" by Arab traders. It is derived from the Sanskrit "Siṃhaladvīpaḥ" (Siṃhalaḥ, Sri Lanka + dvīpaḥ, island).
Thomas Walpole Thomas Walpole Thomas Walpole (6 October 1727 – March 1803), styled from 1756 The Hon. Thomas Walpole, was a British MP and banker in Paris. Thomas Walpole was born into a political family. The second son of the 1st Baron Walpole and his wife Mary, "nee" Lombard, he was the nephew of Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister from 1721 to 1742. Walpole entered into partnership with the merchant Sir Joshua Vanneck, and married his daughter Elizabeth Vanneck on 14 November 1753. She died on 9 June 1760. He was MP for Sudbury from 1754 to 1761, and MP for