Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.

Walpole contrasts world-historical conquest with the intense, immediate satisfactions of youthful status and local power. By setting “Alexander at the head of the world” against “boys … at the head of a school,” he suggests that ambition scales oddly: the emotional “true pleasure” of being first among one’s peers can be more vivid than the abstract triumph of ruling empires. The remark also carries Walpole’s characteristic irony about glory and greatness—implying that what people chase as monumental achievement may not deliver proportionate happiness. It reads as a skeptical, psychologically acute observation about vanity, competition, and the formative pleasures of adolescence.