THERE are certain periods of time, in which the passions take the deepest root within us; what at one age makes but a slight impression, and is easily dissipated by diff erent ideas, at another engrosses all the faculties, and becomes so much a part of the soul, as to require the utmost exertion of reason, and all the aids of philosophy and religion to eradicate. – Grief, for example, is one of those passions which, in extreme youth, we know little of, and even when we grow nearer to maturity, has rarely any great dominion, let the cause which excites it be never so interesting, or justifiable: it may indeed be poignant for a time, and drive us to all the excesses imputed to that passion; but then it is of short continuance, it dwells not on the mind, and the least appearance of a new object of satisfaction, banishes it entirely; we dry our tears, and remember no more what so lately we lamented, perhaps with the most noisy exclamations: – but it is not so when riper years give a solidity and firmness to the judgment; – then as we are less apt to grieve without a cause, so we are less able to refrain from grieving, when we have a real cause. – Grief may therefore be called a reasonable passion, tho' it becomes not a reasonable man to give way to it; – this, at first sight, may seem a paradox to many people, but may easily be solved, in my opinion, on a very little consideration; – as thus, – because to be sensible of our loss in the value of the thing for which we mourn, is a proof of our judgment, as to refrain that mourning for what is past retrieving, within the bounds of moderation, is the greatest proof we can give of our reason: – a dull insensibility is not a testimony, either of wisdom or virtue; we are not to bear afflictions like statues, but like men; that is, we are allowed to feel, but not to repine, or be impatient under them: – few there are, however, who have the power of preserving this happy medium, as I before observed, tho’ they are such as have the assistance both of precept and experience.