conflict, calls for the release of our countrymen, ‘sent into hopeless captivity,’ and invokes the murdered names of those children of the state, who ‘armed to defend a beloved parent, and an injured country!’ Even Vetus shrinks from the enormity of such inconsistencies, and excuses himself by saying, ‘Do I feel the spontaneous and unprovoked desire that such a mass of evil should be perpetuated for any portion of mankind? _God forbid._ But it is, _I conscientiously_ believe, a question, _which of these countries shall destroy the other_. In that case, my part is taken—France must be ruined, to save our native country from being ruined. If this be perpetual war, I cannot help it. _Perpetual war has little terror, when perpetual bondage threatens us._’ Here then our bane and antidote are both before us: perpetual war or perpetual bondage;—a pleasant alternative!—but it is an alternative of Vetus’s making, and we shall not, _if we can help it_, submit to either of his indispensable conditions. We shall not learn of him, for ‘his yoke is not easy, nor his burden light.’ If this be our inevitable lot, ‘he cannot help it.’ No; but he can help laying the blame of his own irritable and mischievous conclusions on Nature and Providence; or at least we think it our duty to guard ourselves and others against the fatal delusion. ILLUSTRATIONS OF VETUS ‘Take him, and cut him out in little stars.’ _Jan. 3, 1814._