As throughout nature Providence has pleased to establish an antagonism which carries on the great scheme in harmony, by setting creature against creature, in no instance does man show his vast superiority more strongly over the lower animals than in the defence or attack of his great gregarious abodes. There are numerous animals who, like man, draw up in battle array and dew fields with blood, but none that can bring into play such high qualities as are exhibited in our sieges, from one of a Scotch border tower to Sebastopol. In no case is the difference between reason and instinct more evident. The beaver of to-day constructs and fortifies his dwelling exactly upon the same plan as the first beaver after creation, whereas the science of fortification and siege has kept equal pace with man’s enlightenment. There is no doubt this portion of the art of war attained perfection in the seventeenth century: circumstances of time and place may modify it, but the great principles were then established; the accessories since obtained by scientific discoveries have only added power to the means of destruction, they have not advanced the art itself. We do not hesitate for a moment to say that a Turenne, Condé, Vauban, Marlborough, or Eugene, would vindicate their genius for the great art of war as proudly and successfully at the present time as they did in their own glorious day: when knowledge of any kind has reached a certain point, all the difference is in the men who employ it. The fate of nations at that period depended upon sieges; soldiers of fortune of highly cultivated intellect were engaged in the study and practice of them; and though our readers will find many of these awful contests much more set off with striking incidents and more replete with horrors, they will meet with none so scientifically carried on, both as to defence and attack, as those of the latter part of the seventeenth century. The historian of sieges has an immense advantage over the chronicler of battles. The commander in a great battle can, after the contest is over, give his own account of his views, manœuvres, expedients, and impulsive perceptions, but no other person engaged can possibly describe anything beyond what occurred at the point to which his own individual exertions were confined. The brave soldier, with his blood warmed by energetic action, his mind excited by a love of honour and fame, and his heart, though true as his sword, throbbing with a natural love of life, through the dun smoke sees nothing but the enemy before him, and thinks of nothing but the means of destroying him. It is his duty to execute, and not to contemplate; and the careful reader of a Gazette can generally give a better description of the battle it announces than any soldier engaged in it. Physical and material causes out of number combine to produce this fact.