tain their
plans, it was manifest that they had the means of gathering a force
considerably larger than the little garrison then guarding between eight
and nine thousand prisoners of war at Camp Douglas, and that, taking
advantage of the excitement and the large number of persons who would
ordinarily fill the streets on election-night, they intended to make a
night attack on and surprise this camp, release and arm the prisoners of
war, cut the telegraph-wires, burn the railroad-depots, seize the banks
and stores containing arms and ammunition, take possession of the city,
and commence a campaign for the release of other prisoners of war in the
States of Illinois and Indiana, thus organizing an army to effect and
give success to the general uprising so long contemplated by the 'Sons
of Liberty.'"

[G] Chicago Tribune, Nov. 8, 1864.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

1. _The Hillyars and the Burtons._ A Tale of Two Families.
By HENRY KINGSLEY. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.

2. _Christian's Mistake._ By the Author of "John Halifax."
New York: Harper & Brothers.

3. _Uncle Silas._ A Tale of Bartram-Haugh. By J. S. LE FANU.
New York: Harper & Brothers.

While the American popularity of Charles Kingsley has been rather
declining, the credit of his brother Henry has been gradually rising.
Those who have complained of something rather shallow and sketchy in
some of his former books will find far more solid and faithful work in
this. Indeed, he undertakes rather more than he can carry through, and
the capacious plot, well handled at first, gets into some confusion and
ends in a rather feeble result. To deal with two large families,
distributing part of each in England and part in Australia, to interlink
them in the most complicated way in all genealogical and topographical
relations, demands a structural genius like that of Eugene Sue; and
though Mr. Kingsley grapples stoutly with the load, he staggers under
it. His descriptions of scenery are as vivid as his brother's, and he
exhibits far less arrogance and no theology. There are in the book
single scenes of great power, and there has never, perhaps, been a more
vivid portraiture of lower-middle-class life in England, or of the
manner in which it has been galvanized into a semi-American development
in Australia. The results of that expatriation upon more cultivated
classes, however, appear such as we should be sorry to call even
demi-semi-