Towards his own two brothers, Robert, Earl of Orford, and Edward Walpole, Horace the younger, as he was styled in contradistinction to his uncle, bore very little affection.  His feelings, however, for his nephew George, who succeeded his father as Earl of Orford in 1751, were more creditable to his heart; yet he gives a description of this ill-fated young man in his letters, which shows at once pride and disapprobation.  One lingers with regret over the character and the destiny of this fine young nobleman, whose existence was rendered miserable by frequent attacks, at intervals, of insanity.

Never was there a handsomer, a more popular, a more engaging being than George, third Earl of Orford.  When he appeared at the head of the Norfolk regiment of militia, of which he was colonel, even the great Lord Chatham broke out into enthusiasm:—­’Nothing,’ he wrote, ’could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions; Lord Orford, with the front of Mars himself, and really the greatest figure under arms I ever saw, as the theme of every tongue.’  His person and air, Horace Walpole declared, had a noble wildness in them:  crowds followed the battalions when the king reviewed them in Hyde Park; and among the gay young officers in their scarlet uniforms, faced with black, in their buff waistcoats and gold buttons, none was so conspicuous for martial bearing as Lord Onord, although classed by his uncle ’among the knights of shire who had never in their lives shot anything but woodcocks.’

But there was a peculiarity of character in the young peer which shocked Horace.  ‘No man,’ he says in one of his letters, ’ever felt such a disposition to love another as I did to love him.  I flattered myself that he would restore some lustre to our house—­at least not let it totally sink; but I am forced to give him up, and all my Walpole views....  He has a good breeding, and attention when he is with you that is even flattering;... he promises, offers everything one can wish; but this is all:  the instant he leaves you, all the world are nothing to him; he would not give himself the least trouble in the world to give any one satisfaction; yet this is mere indolence of mind, not of body:  his whole pleasure is outrageous exercise.’

‘He is,’ in another place Horace adds, ’the most selfish man in the world:  without being in the least interested, he loves nobody but himself, yet neglects every view of fortune and ambition.  Yet,’ he concludes, ’it is impossible not to love him when one sees him:  impossible to esteem him when one thinks on him.’

The young lord, succeeding to an estate deeply encumbered, both by his father and grandfather, rushed on the turf, and involved himself still more.  In vain did Horace the younger endeavour to secure for him the hand of Miss Nicholls, an heiress with L50,000, and, to that end, placed the young lady with Horace the elder (Lord Walpole), at Wolterton.  The scheme failed:  the crafty old politician thought he might as well benefit his own sons as his nephew, for he had himself claims on the Houghton estate which he expected Miss Nicholl’s fortune might help to liquidate.