384 MONTHLY IILVIEW OF LITEIlATU HE. 



viable than that of the class of whom I am writing. I never failed to return 

 from my visit to the school-room, or from my walks with its gentle mistress, 

 ■without feeling I had learned something which made me better and wiser. 

 One good feeling I certainly acquired, and I trust I have it still — always to 

 commiserate, and as far as I could to relieve the irksomeness of the life of 

 a " governess." 



" I have, from peculiar circumstances, seen much of those hapless beings, 

 condemned by hard fate to earn their daily bread by the sacrifice of their 

 comfort, their independence, and of all those finer feelings which appear to 

 be (most unfortunately) interwoven with their very frames ; and after long 

 experience, I do not hesitate to declare that the finest principles, and the 

 most exalted friendship, I have ever known, I discovered (and shall cherish 

 to my latest hour) in a governess. Cooper is, I believe, the only author who 

 has written any thing to exalt from their state of depression this interesting 

 division of the world. In his exquisite novel of the " Red Rover," his cha- 

 racter of Mrs. Wyllys will ever be read with pleasure by the liberal and en- 

 lightened of this country; and glad indeed, shall I be, if, in the following 

 pages, I can draw a picture that shall tend to call the attention of the rich 

 and the great to a subject I cannot but consider of vital importance to the 

 cause of education and to humanity. I might perhaps be inclined to doubt 

 whether the rich and the great will read a book bearing the title of "The Go- 

 verness," but that I trust to the assurance I now make, that their vices and 

 follies are not forgotten ; and I have ever remarked, that those novels have 

 found easiest access to the dressing rooms of the fine lady, which have most 

 elaborately pourtrayed her follies, — and to the Britchska of the idle and pro- 

 fligate travellers of the other sex, which have most fully exposed their vices. 

 On this ground therefore I rest my pretensions to their favour ; to a better 

 feeling I am willing to attribute the suffrages of the amiable wife and mo- 

 ther, — to the earnest hope and humble belief that she may learn something 

 from the story of the " Governess.' " 



The Religion of the Universe, with Consolatory Views of a Future 

 State. By Robert Fellowes, LL.D. Thomas Alhnan. 



Dr. Fellowes is well known as a writer on moral and religious topics. 

 Formerly he belonged to the Unitarian persuasion ; but it would appear, from 

 the volume before us, that he has now sought refuge in Deism. We are not 

 surprised at this. Unitarianism teaches its disciples that they are at liberty 

 to reject whatever portions of scripture they think proper ; it is no wonder, 

 therefore, if they end in rejecting the whole. 



That Dr. Fellowes is a man of superior talents, we are most ready to admit. 

 That the volume before us is eloquently written, we are equally willing to ac- 

 knowledge. But we must, at the same time, express our decided disapproba- 

 tion of the author's religious opinions. His positions are feasible, and they 

 are plausibly supported ; but they are supported by specious sophistries, not 

 by sound reasoning. 



" The object of Dr. Fellowes is to prove that the true religion is taught by 

 nature, or the universe. Of course, if this position be sound, Christianity 

 ought at once to be set aside. 



Dr. Fellowes argues that the revelation which'the Deity is continually mak- 

 ing through the universe, or through the medium of facts, is not weakened 

 or obscured by the progress of time, or the revolutions of years ; but that it 

 is, on the contrary, a perpetually increasing light. 



Here Dr. Fellowes is grievously in error. We pause not to demolish the 

 hypothesis which he advances in an immediately preceding passage, that no 

 revelation which the Deity could make through the medium of words could by 

 possibility constitute a revelation ; but we ask him, if the light of the uni- 

 verse, or the light of nature, be a perpetually increasing light, how happens it 



