s_, as a kind of editorial hacklog on which able-editors
were wont to chop straw now and then. Nay the Letters were collected and
reprinted; both this first series, of 1812, and then a second of next
year: two very thin, very dim-colored cheap octavos; stray copies of
which still exist, and may one day become distillable into a drop of
History (should such be wanted of our poor "Scavenger Age" in
time coming), though the reading of them has long ceased in this
generation.[4] The first series, we perceive, had even gone to a second
edition. The tone, wherever one timidly glances into this extinct
cockpit, is trenchant and emphatic: the name of _Vetus_, strenuously
fighting there, had become considerable in the talking political world;
and, no doubt, was especially of mark, as that of a writer who might
otherwise be important, with the proprietors of the _Times_. The
connection continued: widened and deepened itself,--in a slow tentative
manner; passing naturally from voluntary into remunerated: and indeed
proving more and more to be the true ultimate arena, and battle-field
and seed-field, for the exuberant impetuosities and faculties of this
man.

What the _Letters of Vetus_ treated of I do not know; doubtless they ran
upon Napoleon, Catholic Emancipation, true methods of national defence,
of effective foreign Anti-gallicism, and of domestic ditto; which
formed the staple of editorial speculation at that time. I have heard
in general that Captain Sterling, then and afterwards, advocated "the
Marquis of Wellesley's policy;" but that also, what it was, I have
forgotten, and the world has been willing to forget. Enough, the heads
of the _Times_ establishment, perhaps already the Marquis of Wellesley
and other important persons, had their eye on this writer; and it began
to be surmised by him that here at last was the career he had been
seeking.

Accordingly, in 1814, when victorious Peace unexpectedly arrived; and
the gates of the Continent after five-and-twenty years of fierce closure
were suddenly thrown open; and the hearts of all English and European
men awoke staggering as if from a nightmare suddenly removed, and ran
hither and thither,--Edward Sterling also determined on a new adventure,
that of crossing to Paris, and trying what might lie in store for him.
For curiosity, in its idler sense, there was evidently pabulum enough.
But he had hopes moreover of learning much that might perhaps avail him
afterwards;--h