Thus we see that the pleasant country of the Skelts stretched from the Surrey side of the Thames to the Bowery bank of the Hudson, and that the Skeltic temperament was purely melodramatic, its bass notes being transposed to adjust it to the clear treble of boyhood. It is greatly to be regretted that no inquiring scholar has yet devoted himself to the task of tracing the history of English melodrama, as Professor Thorndike has traced the history of English tragedy. Of course, there have always been melodramatic plays ever since the drama began to assert itself as an independent form of art. There is a melodramatic element in the 'Medea' of Euripides, as there is in the 'Rodogune' of Corneille; and in the Elizabethan theater the so-called tragedy of blood is nothing if not melodramatic. Yet the special form of English melodrama that flourished in the later years of the eighteenth century and the earlier years of the nineteenth deserves a more careful study than it has yet received. Apparently it was due partly to a decadence of the native type of drama represented by Lillo's 'George Barnwell,' and partly to the stimulation received first from the emotional pieces of the German Kotzebue, and afterward from the picturesque pieces of the French Pixérécourt. And not to be neglected is the influence immediately exerted on the popular plays of the latter part of the period by the romances of Scott and of Cooper. Altho these plays were devoid of literary merit, of style, of veracity of character delineation, of sincerity of motive, they were not without theatrical effectiveness--or they could never have maintained themselves in the theater. As Sir Arthur Pinero has seen clearly, "a drama which was sufficiently popular to be transferred to the toy theaters was almost certain to have a sort of rude merit in its construction. The characterization would be hopelessly conventional, the dialog bald and despicable--but the situations would be artfully arranged, the story told adroitly and with spirit." In other words, the compounders of these melodramas were fairly skilful in devising plots likely to arouse and to sustain the interest of uncritical audiences. Probably they were unfamiliar with Voltaire's assertion that the success of a play depends mainly upon the choice of its story; and it is unlikely that they had any knowledge of Aristotle's declaration that plot is primarily more important than character; but they accomplished their humble task as well as if they had been heartened by these authorities. These ingenious and ingenuous pieces were none of them contributions to English dramatic literature, and they are not enshrined in its annals; but they were effective stage-plays, nevertheless, and they had, therefore, an essential quality lacking in the closet-dramas which Shelley and Byron were composing in those same years. III