Some four years later, in the fall of 1891, a Mr. McDowell, son of General McDowell of Civil War fame, started the _Theater of Arts and Letters_ with the idea of bringing literature and the drama into closer relationship. Five plays were produced, and among the names of the authors (again they were all natives) one finds several which have since become famous. Commercially, the venture was a total failure, and the authors did not even collect their full royalties. A short tour was made with several of the more successful plays, one by Clyde Fitch (a one-act which was afterwards expanded into _The Moth and the Flame_), one by Richard Harding Davis, and one by Brander Matthews. All three of these were one-act. American authors were willing enough to write plays, but they apparently could not succeed, except in isolated instances, in writing good ones. There was evidently an utter dearth of suitable material. Nevertheless, when foreign plays were put on no better fortune ensued, unless they represented the old school of pseudo melodrama, and farce adapted from the French and German, such as Augustin Daly delighted in. Daly too had discovered that to encourage the American playwright was to court disaster. In 1897 _The Criterion_, a New York review of rather eccentric merit, endeavored to establish the _Criterion Independent Theater_ modeled on the _Théâtre-Libre_ of Antoine. A company was recruited, headed by E. J. Henley, and performances were given at first the _Madison Square Theater_, and then the _Berkeley Lyceum_. It was frankly intended that the appeal should be to a small, select audience, and, in spite of the jeers of the press, five plays were produced--one Norwegian, one Italian, one French, one Spanish, and one American. A glance through the list shows us that the American play, by Augustus Thomas, is the only one which has not since entered into the permanent literature of the stage. Internal differences, and imperfect rehearsals combined to overthrow the venture which, after one season, was abandoned. The success of the last production, however, _El Gran Galeoto_, inspired Mr. John Blair to produce Ibsen's _Ghosts_ with Miss Mary Shaw at the _Carnegie Lyceum_ in 1899. From this sprang _The Independent Theater_, generously backed financially by Mr. George Peabody Eustis of Washington.