d when they observed upon
the nearer approach that it was a human body. The young lady, who had
a heart naturally filled with pity and compassion, made many melancholy
reflections on the occasion. "Who knows," said she, "but this man may
be the only hope and heir of a wealthy house; the darling of indulgent
parents, who are now in impertinent mirth, and pleasing themselves with
the thoughts of offering him a bride they had got ready for him? or,
may not he be the master of a family that wholly depended upon his life?
There may, for aught we know, be half-a-dozen fatherless children and a
tender wife, now exposed to poverty by his death. What pleasure might he
have promised himself in the different welcome he was to have from her
and them! But let us go away; it is a dreadful sight! The best office we
can do is to take care that the poor man, whoever he is, may be decently
buried." She turned away, when the wave threw the carcass on the shore.
The kinswoman immediately shrieked out, "Oh, my cousin!" and fell upon
the ground. The unhappy wife went to help her friend, when she saw her
own husband at her feet, and dropped in a swoon upon the body. An old
woman, who had been the gentleman's nurse, came out about this time to
call the ladies in to supper, and found her child, as she always called
him, dead on the shore, her mistress and kinswoman both lying dead by
him. Her loud lamentations, and calling her young master to life, soon
awaked the friend from her trance, but the wife was gone for ever.

When the family and neighbourhood got together round the bodies, no one
asked any question, but the objects before them told the story.

Incidents of this nature are the more moving when they are drawn by
persons concerned in the catastrophe, notwithstanding they are often
oppressed beyond the power of giving them in a distinct light, except we
gather their sorrow from their inability to speak it.

I have two original letters, written both on the same day, which are
to me exquisite in their different kinds. The occasion was this. A
gentleman who had courted a most agreeable young woman, and won her
heart, obtained also the consent of her father, to whom she was an only
child. The old man had a fancy that they should be married in the same
church where he himself was, in a village in Westmoreland, and made them
set out while he was laid up with the gout at London. The bridegroom
took only his man, the bride her maid: they had th