New-York daily tribune., 1843-01-07

snce also Of an invisible Being or oelhse win is
nendous though subordinate powers tor evil 5
NOT too marvellous for our faith Yet none OF
these sse-. 70 correspond 70 our authors idea OF
The Spin. Of The age. Had he meant any OF them,
We nav surely conclude he would be woUld have
,old us 50, and not have left MS bearers N the
dark, through fear ofbeing nosght to utter truths,
which though yaluabe, might seem trits or corr
ul-n-place-whichh had been repeated in hundred
ESSAYS. and preached from thousand olc-iasa-
ioned puipits.
The lecturer asks ano;her question s,ia more
mysterious. q But if (inouires hel the Spirits CT
the ages shall never perish, (he had eene 10 the
conclusion that after having performed their mis-
siens, they all lived together il odd Paradise
o. Hades of their own,) can there be property in
them By moral right p Listen, We sages of the
law--he.e is case for you. Examine well your
precedeuts-cousu!t your best authorities on the
law municipal. the law national, the laws of ma
.ure. and the statutes of Swedenborg : transcend
entai world Here is indeed case that viii Try
your powers Have the spirits OF the ages JUS
copyright claim in their productions Really,
Mr. Bancroft, this question OF law cannot be de-
cided on sound and established precedents, be-
cause none of these underlined beings have ever
vet appeared rs parties in any OF our courts; and
besides, until you, as their historias, have better
by which they are governed, it is altogether
less to ask any legal opinion on the subject. We
fnd, however, on denomination, that the lecturer
himself decides against this transcendental claim
of copy-rigkt He resorts to the drgumentrm
a4 a5surdam, and traces the evil consequences or
confusion of titles which would result from grant
ing exclusive privileges in these cases. The lee
,urer carries his democratic hatred of monopolies
although monopolies OF genius-evcn into the
iransceudental world of his own fancy. OBJ
serve (says he) the consequences ii this moral
right be recognised. The thoughts that are of
eternity cannot be appropriated. Every ray of
light, in that case, must be taxed, and thought
would stand like tollgatherer at all the gates
men may build on the worlds highway. Soon we
might find some one start up in the 1onian Isles
and claim damages from those who have been re-
frcshed from the song of Homer, and the wander
ing Jew would put in claim in our courts to some
of the lofty burihens of the Prophet Isaiah. No
the world has had It's arstocraces of Pries,crcft,
shall i; now establish aristocracy of men of
letters? 2" Generous man how must thy conde-
scension have been appreciated by the poor au
aence YOU deigned to culightcn? What pure
nodesiy, what unaffected humility We men of
Genus claim 10 copyright IN treasures of in-
spiration. We are merely the breathing holes of
the great Spirit of the age, and have therefore no
right TO intercept that breath of intellectual life,
which through US is transmitted 10 all her child
rcn. However new and uncommon. however
much above the trite path of those who deal in
such old-inshoRed phrases Providence and
Grace, the pcrspicuous, the well defined,
the sublime conceptions we spread before YOU
not unto US, not unto Us be the glory, but to that
invisible power, in the character Of whose priests
we now address you
The Spirit of the age, says our lecturer, had
something to do with Dwigh. and Barlow, but its
full expression was found onlyin CHASNIHG. One
reason of this, we are told, was because he was
born oa an island, and q hence from early life ne
cvinced strsng desire after communion with that
eternity of which the ocean was the symbol =
"Wemay," says ourlecturer, alluae to the dead.
He means in praise-and why may not those who
think differently do the same in censurc Chan
ming has unquestienably exerted great influence
over the young mind of country. He has
been praised in the most extravagant manner by
his own sect, while spurious liberality has re-
strained the expression OF those who regard his
works as fraught with no ANAL amount of evil
We would however speak of him a, present sim
ply in a literary point of view. We regard him
as having done much TO vitatc the taste of our
young men. He is unquestonebly the author, IN
this country, of that school of writing OF which
this lecture in all its extravaganza and al its un-
meaningless, is fair specimen. He is tie ui-
doubted chief of the clan, to these "children of
the mist" He adopted a system of philosophy
we would not oicad by calling it theology from
which all definition was excluded system which
could only be compared 10 the ocean, of which
our lecturer speaks without shore or bottom,
Homer STYLES 1t % the barren sea" with definite
object, without even an island or rock which
the eye could repose. 1t had no first principles,
no axioms, no conclusions, for it had no premises
Ii consisted OF negations in place OF creed, misty
antcipations Of light e-sr 10 come, in place OF
distinct present conceptions, and continual
straining of the eye upon the future, while his
spcculations were pouring the darkness OF scepti-
cism over the present hour. He certainly had q
powerful intellect, or it mus, hare utterly wthered
under the influence Of such system His fol-
lowers, as we'll as hirsself, have felt the want Of
something more definite than could be found in
their philosophy of cations. Hence theirunnean-
ing defamation about the Spirits of the Ages,
and the Inspiration OF the Race. Hence that
strange mixture of Swedcnborgian.m and Boston
transcendentalism, which although it has now ex-
listed for several years, has not yet like the evil
spirits released from the seal OF Solomon, gradu-
ally exchanged its state of vapor for any visible
outline, but still remains as utterly underlined and
as incapable of all definition, a, when it aston
shcd The public in the unmcaning rant and dis
suiscd truisms of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
All are familiar with The reply of the Orator,
whc declared that action was the FIRST and second,
and third element of eoquence. In ike manner,
II asked what was the prime excellence of good
writing, we should be compelled, inrecollecton of
what the community have lately suffered from this
uanscendental smoke, TO reply, perspcuity, perspi
cuiiy. We would say to these children OF the
mist, give US the promised light. 1t requires
some powers of intellect TO form and put together
a creed even although it be a false one,-to de-