the dictates of his understanding. It is
very natural, when one is got into such a way of thinking, to recollect
these examples of sorrow which have made the strongest impression upon
our imaginations. An instance or two of such you will give me leave to
communicate.

A young gentleman and lady of ancient and honourable houses in Cornwall
had from their childhood entertained for each other a generous and noble
passion, which had been long opposed by their friends, by reason of the
inequality of their fortunes; but their constancy to each other, and
obedience to those on whom they depended, wrought so much upon their
relations, that these celebrated lovers were at length joined in
marriage. Soon after their nuptials the bridegroom was obliged to go
into a foreign country, to take care of a considerable fortune, which
was left him by a relation, and came very opportunely to improve their
moderate circumstances. They received the congratulations of all the
country on this occasion; and I remember it was a common sentence in
everyone's mouth, "You see how faithful love is rewarded."

He took this agreeable voyage, and sent home every post fresh accounts
of his success in his affairs abroad; but at last, though he designed
to return with the next ship, he lamented in his letters that "business
would detain him some time longer from home," because he would give
himself the pleasure of an unexpected arrival.

The young lady, after the heat of the day, walked every evening on the
sea-shore, near which she lived, with a familiar friend, her husband's
kinswoman, and diverted herself with what objects they met there, or
upon discourses of the future methods of life, in the happy change of
their circumstances. They stood one evening on the shore together in a
perfect tranquillity, observing the setting of the sun, the calm face
of the deep, and the silent heaving of the waves, which gently rolled
towards them, and broke at their feet, when at a distance her kinswoman
saw something float on the waters, which she fancied was a chest, and
with a smile told her, "she saw it first, and if it came ashore full of
jewels she had a right to it." They both fixed their eyes upon it, and
entertained themselves with the subject of the wreck, the cousin still
asserting her right, but promising, "if it was a prize, to give her a
very rich coral for the child which she was then expecting, provided she
might be godmother." Their mirth soon abate