Horace Walpole turns to the letters and argues that: Walpole's numerous letters are often used as a historical resource. In one, dating from 28 January 1754, he coined the word serendipity which he said was derived from a "silly fairy tale" he had read, "The Three Princes of Serendip". The oft-quoted epigram, "This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel", is from a letter of Walpole's to Anne, Countess of Ossory, on 16 August 1776. The original, fuller version appeared in a letter to Sir Horace Mann on 31 December 1769: "I have often said,
Robert Walpole much money in the 1720s and 1730s in building up a collection of Old Masters from all over Europe. Walpole also concerned himself with estate matters. His health, never good, deteriorated rapidly toward the end of 1744; Orford died in London in 1745, aged nearly sixty-nine years; he was buried in the parish church of St Martin in Houghton, Norfolk. His earldom passed to his eldest son Robert who was in turn succeeded by his only son George. Upon the death of the third Earl, the Earldom was inherited by the first Earl's younger son Horace Walpole, who is now