good among the characters, lent itself readily to a dramatization that required a minimum of dialogue and a maximum of action, music, and machinery. Comic scenes were, of course, _de rigueur_. "The Slave," by Morton, was one of the most enduring of the Colmanesque type. The serious plot, which presents Gambia, the slave, as the sacrificing hero, borrows from "The Curfew" and "Oronooko," and for its great scene improves upon the escape over the bridge in "Pizarro."[46] After Clifton and Zelinda (whom Gambia hopelessly adores) escape across the hanging bridge, Gambia climbs up the tree from which it is suspended and cuts the rope. The pursuing villains are foiled on the brink. "We are safe, my husband," cries Zelinda from the other side; but her child, safely hidden by Gambia, hears her voice, and runs from his hiding-place,--on the wrong side of the river. _Child._ It was my mother's voice! Mother! mother! _Zelinda._ Alas! my child! _Somerdyke._ Her child! Then we triumph--seize him! (_A slave seizes the child, and, running up a point of rock, hands it to Somerdyke, who continues._) Move one step further, and you will see him buried in the waters. Submit, or this instant is his last. (_Holding him up in the act of precipitating him._) _Zelinda._ I do submit. _Gambia._ Never! (_Gambia, who has concealed himself in the branches, snatches the child up into the tree._) Father, receive your child! (_Throws the child across the stream._) They have him! He is safe! Ha! Ha! Ha! (_Curtain._) The term "melodrama" ceased after a time to denote the peculiar species brought from France in 1802, and came to be applied to all plays depending for effect on situation, sensation, or machinery, rather than characterization. The musical accompaniment and songs became minor features; the lively action, elaborate mechanical devices, dumb show, strong contrast of virtue and evil, and the happy ending remained the essentials. There was thus created a kind of inferior tragedy aiming at no literary excellence, which has ever since continued to fill the theatres and to satisfy the larger public. This natural reaction from eighteenth century dullness and declamation to bustle, pantomime, and music did not further, as in France, any immediate development in the literary drama. There was in England no relationship between the two as between Pixérécourt and Hugo. On the contrary, melodrama in England offered nothing new, for it absorbed about all that was old. All the well-worn situations, the escapes, rivalries, sacrifices, of the English stock plays were preserved, and to these was added whatever French melodrama offered. In this way there is curiously preserved in the cheaper theatres to-day the direct results of theatrical traditions going back before Shakespeare.