bound to fight instead of meanly assassinating. Falkland is a perverse monomaniac, who will guard his reputation even by deserving infamy. That, no doubt, might suggest a very interesting motive. The psychology of hypocrisy—of the transition by which the sense of honour is replaced by a desire for being honoured—might be embodied in a lifelike hero, as it is common enough in real life. With Godwin, Falkland becomes a heap of contradictory qualities. Monomaniacs are rather in favour now, and a modern novelist would, perhaps, make Falkland into an illustration of heredity or the general corruption of society. But he is so obviously unreal, and all the incidents so frankly impossible, that we scarcely feel even the interest excited by a caricature of conceivable wickedness. Why, then, are we interested? In the first place, because mysterious crimes are always interesting. The interest may be wrong, but it is natural. But, in the next place, given the situation and shutting our eyes to impossibilities, Godwin shows the kind of power manifested by the Political Justice. The story is developed with admirable order and lucidity—if the machinery will not bear inspection, we need not inspect—and the agony is slowly and steadily
