Every petty laird dined and slept within the walls of his thick square tower; isolated by moat or precipice, by long dark passages and iron grated door. In an age when individuals thus protected themselves, it naturally astonishes one to observe how accessible the royal person generally appears to have been--how slightly protected from contact with the people, how easily approached by the assassin. One man was able to remove all the impediments which stood in the way of the Highland band who slew James I. at Perth. The murder of Rizzio, with all its circumstances of cool premeditation, and calm, steady, bitter insult, need not be recalled to the reader, among the other incidents, which show how thin a partition separated the sovereign from rude violence. The various forms in which that turbulent and most pertinacious of rebels, Francis Earl of Bothwell, assailed King James, are fraught with a ludicrous versatility in the art of haunting and tormenting a king. The official act of forfeiture characterised it as "invading, assieging, and persuing of his Majesty's most noble person, by fire and sword, breaking up his chalmer doors with fore hammers, and cruelly slaying his Highness' servants coming to his Majesty's rescue." "Ane treason and cruelty," continues the indignant document, "not heard nor seen committed by subjects so highly obliged to their native king and prince." The contemporary chronicler, Birrel, characterised the outrage as "a stoure," which the rebel created by striking "with ane hammer at his Majesty's chamber door." In his more renowned and successful attempt, the pathway to the person of royalty was so completely cleared for him by a courageous female, the Duchess of Athole, whose house was next door to the palace, that the weapons of the guard were removed; the queen's bed-room, to which the beleaguered monarch might have fled, was locked; and the prime conspirator and his assistant were comfortably lodged behind the arras of the ante-room to the king's sleeping apartment. What might not a boy Jones have accomplished in those days? Should we, however, pursue this subject further, we would be trespassing on that ground of established history which it is our desire on the present occasion to avoid. SIR SIDNEY SMITH. [R] [R] _The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith, G. C. B._ By T. BARROW, Esq. F. R. S. Two vols. Bentley, London. A glance at the history of European fleets would give, perhaps, the highest conception of human powers in the whole progress of mankind. Philosophy, literature, and legislation, of course, have attained illustrious distinctions. But the naval service combines every thing: personal intrepidity, the strongest demand upon personal resources, the quickest decision, the most vigorous exertion of manual and mechanical skill, the sternest hardihood, and the most practical and continual application of science.