The chronicles of war in all ages show us that this internecine strife into which we of the North have been driven by those who will eventually rue the necessity, is by no manner of means the first in which brother has literally been pitted against brother in the deadly 'tug of war.' The fiercest conflict of the kind, however, which we can at present call up from the memory of past readings, was one in which THEODEBERT, king of Austria, took the field against his own brother, THIERRI, king of Burgundy. Historians tell us that, so close was the hand-to-hand fighting in this battle, slain soldiers did not fall until the _melee_ was over, but were borne to and fro in an upright position amid the serried ranks. * * * * * Although many and many of England's greatest battles have been won for her by her Irish soldiers, it is not always that the latter can be depended upon by her. With the Celt, above all men, 'blood is thicker than water;' and, although he is very handy at breaking the head of another Celt with a blackthorn 'alpeen,' in a free faction fight, he objects to making assaults upon his fellow countrymen with the 'pomp and circumstance of war.' A striking instance of this occurred during the Irish rebellion of 1798. The 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons refused to charge upon a body of the rebels when the word was given. Not a man or horse stirred from the ranks. Here was a difficult card to play, now, for the authorities, because it would have been inconvenient to try the whole regiment by court martial, and the soldiers were quite too valuable to be mowed down _en masse_. The only course left was to disband the regiment, which was done. The disaffected men were distributed into regiments serving in India and other remote colonies, and the officers, none of whom, we believe, were involved in the mutiny, were provided for in various quarters. The circumstance was commemorated in a curious way. It was ordered that the 5th Royal Irish Light Dragoons should be erased from the records of the army list, in which a blank between the 4th and 6th Dragoons should remain forever, as a memorial of disgrace. For upward of half a century this gap remained in the army list, as anybody may see by referring to any number of that publication of half-a-dozen years back. The regiment was revived during, or just after, the Crimean war, and the numbers in the army list are once more complete. THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY.