It is impossible to sympathise with a hero who is actuated by the very lowest of human motives, sheer inquisitiveness: and _my_ sense of natural justice (which is different from Godwin's) demands not that he shall escape, but that he shall be broken on the wheel, or burnt at a slow fire, or made to read _Political Justice_ after the novelty of its colossal want of humour has palled on him.

One could sympathise with Falkland, but is not allowed to do so: because he is not human, except in his crime.

But, as has been said, to those whose sporting interests are excited by the pleasures and hazards of the chase, these things no doubt do not occur.

After all _Caleb_ is, in a sense, the first "detective novel": and detective novels have always been popular, though they bore some people to extinction.

Far, however, be it from me to deny that this popularity, especially when, as in the present case, it has been continued for four whole generations, is a real and a very considerable asset.