some celestial ichor in our veins, which we alone shed for our country, while other nations neither bleed nor suffer from war, nor have a right to profit by peace. This may be very well in poetry, or on the stage, but it will not pass current in diplomacy. Vetus, indeed, strains hard to reconcile inconsistencies, and to found the laws of nations on the sentiments of exclusive patriotism. But we should think that the common rules of peace and war, which necessarily involve the rights, interests, and feelings of different nations, cannot be dictated by the heroic caprices of a few hair-brained egotists, on either side of the question. ILLUSTRATIONS OF VETUS (CONTINUED) ‘He is indeed a person of great acquired follies.’ SIR FOPLING FLUTTER _Dec. 10, 1813._ ‘Nothing,’ continues Vetus, ‘can be more opposite to this great policy, than to fight and to render back the fruits of our successes. We may be assured, that those with whom we contend are ready enough to improve _their_ victories. If we are not equally so, _we shall never be at rest_. If the enemy beats us, he wins our provinces.—[_What provinces of ours?_]—If we beat him, we restore all. What more profitable game could he desire! Truly, at this rate, our neighbours must be arrant fools if they leave us one week’s repose!’ There is a spirit of Machiavelian policy in this paragraph which is very commendable. It reminds us of the satirist’s description of ‘fools aspiring to be knaves.’ It is, in fact, this fear of being outwitted by the French, that constantly makes us the dupes of our suspicions of them, as it is a want of confidence in our own strength or firmness, that leads us to shew our courage by defiance. True courage, as well as true wisdom, is not distrustful of itself. Vetus recommends it to us to act upon the maxims of the common disturbers of mankind, of ‘this obdurate and rapacious foe,’ as the only means to secure general tranquillity. He wishes to embody the pretended spirit and principles of French diplomacy in a code,—the acknowledged basis of which should be either universal conquest, or endless hostility. We have, it seems, no chance of repelling the aggressions of the French, but by retaliating them not only on themselves, but on other states. At least, the author gives a pretty broad hint of what he means by the improvement of _our_ victories, when he talks of annexing Holland and Danish Zealand to Hanover, as ‘her natural prey,’ _instead_ of their being the dependencies of France. This is certainly one way of trimming the balance of power in Europe, and placing the independence of nations in a most happy dilemma. The inventor of this new and short way with foreign states only laments that Hanover, ‘under British auspices,’ has not been before-hand with France in imitating Prussia in her seizure of the