EXTRAORDINARY EFFECTS OF SUDDEN JOY.
Arthur Plantagenet, viscount Lisle, natural son to King Edward IV. was imprisoned in the thirty-third year of Henry VIII. upon suspicion, that he designed to betray Calais to the French, when he was governor of that important garrison; but the accusation proving false, and the king willing to repair the dishonour he had sustained, sent him a diamond ring, and a kind message by his secretary of state Sir Thomas Wriothesly; at which the viscount was so over-joyed and transported to excess of satisfaction, that the night following, of that very joy he died.
Cinan Cuffutus Judæus being at Arsinoe, a port upon the Red Sea, making war upon the Portuguese, by commission from the grand signior Solyman, he there received the news, that his son Selechus was made a slave at the taking of Tunis, but being soon after informed that he was redeemed by Haradienus, made admiral of seven ships of war, and with them was at anchor before Alexandria, and from thence resolved to join him very suddenly. This notice of his son’s unexpected freedom, and his being preferred to such a post of honour, so surprized and overwhelmed the old man with excess of joy; that he swooned at the hearing of it, and at the arrival of his son he died in his arms.
Original: The wonders of the little world; or, A general history of man, displaying the various faculties, capacities, powers and defects of the human body and mind, Volume 2. Nathanial Wanley, 1678.
Original title of essay: Of Extraordinary Joy, and the Effects It Has Produced
Abridged edition: The history of man: displaying the various powers, faculties, capacities ... 1746 Vol. II
Also: 1806 William Johnston new edn. has “Sinan Ceffutus Judæus”, “Haradienus Barbarossa” and more details
Link: http://books.google.com/books?id=V0oBAAAAQAAJ