Lively ethos embraced by large old country (7)
I believe the answer is:
lesotho
'country' is the definition.
(I know that Lesotho is a African country)
'lively ethos embraced by large old' is the wordplay.
'lively' is an anagram indicator (letters get livened up or moved around).
'embraced by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'large' becomes 'L' (eg in clothes sizes).
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'ethos' is an anagram of 'esoth'.
'l'+'o'='lo'
'esoth' put within 'lo' is 'LESOTHO'.
(Other definitions for lesotho that I've seen before include "Kingdom that was formerly Basutoland" , "Kingdom within South Africa" , "He loots (anag) -- southern African kingdom" , "Trickery" , "South African kingdom" .)