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274 The Drama, 1860-1918 1887 at an author's matinee at the Madison Square Theatre, by A. M. Palmer, who likewise presented George Parsons Lathrop's Elaine and Howells's dramatization of A Foregone Conclusion. In similar fashion was Decision of the Court pre- sented, 23 March, 1893, by the Theatre of Arts and Letters. This organization also offered Mary E. Wilkins's Giles Corey, Frank R. Stockton's Squirrel Inn, and Clyde Fitch's Harvest — ^which latter was afterwards evolved into The Moth and the Flame. Professor Matthews, as an American dramatist, has scarcely exhibited the qualities or won the fame which belong to him as a professor of Dramatic Literature. ^ The reason may be, as Bronson Howard declared after the experience they had together in collaboration over Peter ^^wywe^owi (2 October, 1899), that Professor Matthews, used to viewing the finished product in the theatre, was not used to the constant labour which always attends the writing and further re-writing of a play. Bronson Howard (i 842-1908) came to the theatre with a full journalistic career behind him. He had the serious mind of a student, the keen, polished culture of a man of the world. To play-writing he brought a convention typical of the day and a constructive ability which made him always an excellent workman but which often prompted him to sacrifice thought- fulness for stage effectiveness and solid characterization for effervescent sprightliness. His style, so well contrasted in Saratoga (21 December, 1870), The Banker's Daughter (30 September, 1878), The Young Mrs. Winthrop (9 October, 1882), and The Henrietta (26 September, 1887), is limited by all the reticence, the lack of frankness which the seventies and eighties courted. In other words, he went on the supposition that so long as one was French one could be broad, but that Americans would never stand for too much latitude of morals from Ameri- can characters. But, as a pioneer in the field of the drama of contemporary manners, Howard's plays are interesting and significant. His treatment of capital and labour, as shown in Baron Rudolph (25 October, 1887), his reflection of business stress, in The Henrietta, — these were, in their day, novel de- partures. But his plays were none of them organically close knit. It was easy to make Saratoga ready for consumption in ' For Professor Matthews's important writing on the short story see Book III, Chap. VI.