Editorial note — THE FIRST SIEGE OF LIMERICK.

[Footnote 205: For the behoof of young renders not conversant with the outworks of besieged towns, a few explanatory words are given. Outside the strong walls is a wide and deep, dry ditch. The sloping side from which the wall rises is the scarp, the opposite slope is the counterscarp, its upper line meeting with the platform called the covered way. This covered way is about thirty feet wide, its outward boundary being the face of the glacis or sloping plane, this last so situated that men marching along it to attack the fortress are in the direct range of the guns. The level of the glacis is higher than that of the covered way by seven or eight feet. The defenders standing on a small terrace called the banquette at the base of the glacis, and resting their muskets on its edge, can fire on the advancing foe.]