He drew forth the animosity and injurious influence of a third set of

opponents from among the least noble and successful members of his

own profession, with whom, from dissimilarities of tastes and habits

and preference for the opportunities of higher intercourse opened to

him, he did not intimately associate as an equal. He had an ample

supply of friends and comrades endowed with distinguished talents

and proud aspirations, scholars, poets, jurists, statesmen, whose

fellowship strengthened his ambition, nourished his mind, refined his

fancy, gratified his affections, and led him into the ideal world

of books and art. Courted by such gentlemen, with his rising fame

and fortune he naturally chose their society, to the neglect of that

of his fellow-actors whose haunts were low, whose habits loose, and

whose professional status a dull and hopeless mediocrity. It is not

customary for the distinguished leaders and masters in any profession

to associate in close intimacy with the rank and file of workmen in

their departments. It _is_ customary, however, for the rank and file

to resent the neglect and take their revenge in flouting. Giotto,

Lionardo, Raphael, Titian, did not hob-nob and lounge with the ordinary

painters of their day. The friends of artists are not artisans, but

other artists, their peers, noble patrons, celebrated persons, and

inspiring coadjutors. The blame so bitterly and often cast on Forrest

in this respect was unjust. The vindictive personal censures which

his sometimes absorbed and distant bearing elicited from injured

self-love were ignoble. The stock is no doubt often provoked to sneer

at the Star; but the action is not beautiful or worthy of deferential

attention. If the ordinary members of a profession, instead of looking

askance at the extraordinary ones and indulging in detraction, would

cultivate admiring sympathy, aspiring intelligence, and nobleness, they

would soon bridge the chasm that separates them. It is the absence

of generous sensibility and self-respecting application that at once

keeps them inferiors and prevents their superiors from becoming their

intimates. In the last twenty-five years of his life Forrest had, as a

consequence of what he had been through, an explosive irritability of

temperament, and not infrequently in moving among theatrical companies

betrayed an imperious sense of power. But he was profoundly just, ready

instantly to make princely amends when convinced of an error or wrong;

and under his harsh and volcanic exterior there always, even to the

very last, slept a deep spring of tenderness pure enough to reflect the

eyes of angels. It was perfectly natural that he should be misjudged.

Not one in a thousand could be expected to have the generous insight,

the detachment and gentleness, needed to read him aright. Consequently,

a swarm of false accusations and angry remarks pursued him like a buzz

of wasps enveloping his head.

Still further, he incurred the special resentment of that class of

newspaper critics who expected to receive tribute from those whom

they condescended to praise. Many of these writers for the press have

been so accustomed to be courted, flattered, compensated, that they

have come to regard a failure on the part of a public performer to

propitiate their good graces in advance by suppliant attentions, and

to acknowledge them afterwards by thanks if not by rewards, as just

cause for turning their pens against the delinquent. Forrest was

always too honest and too proud to stoop to anything of this kind.

He strove to do the best justice in his power to the characters he

impersonated, and would then leave the verdict to the instincts of the

public and the unbiassed judgments of competent critics. The utter

falsity, unfairness, shallowness, and absurdity which so often marked

the dramatic critiques of the press, a large proportion of which were

written by persons not only notoriously prejudiced and unprincipled

but also ignorant of the elementary principles of criticism, early

disgusted and angered him to such a degree that he would have nothing

whatever to do with this class of writers, but turned from them

with disdain. They knew his feeling, and they sought their revenge

by every sort of exaggeration and caricature. With artifices of

misrepresentation, burlesque, elaborate assault, and incidental jeer,

they racked their ingenuity to lessen his reputation and make him

wince. They succeeded better in the latter than in the former.

At that time, as has been said, the influence of English literature and

talent held almost exclusive possession of the field in this country,

most especially in theatrical matters. All the great travelling stars

of the stage, until Forrest rose, had been drawn from the English

galaxy. The chief dramatic critics were Englishmen. There was a

strong banded interest to keep these things so. But the rising spirit

of nationality was beginning to assert itself. In the conflict that

ensued, Forrest was made a central figure around whom the struggle

raged most fiercely. The English clique were pledged to maintain the

supremacy of their own school and its representatives, while the

Americans stood up distinctively in support and praise of whatever

was native. A majority of the worst critiques against Forrest were

written by foreigners under the instigation of the English clique.

The extent and power of this passionate bias on both sides are now so

nearly a mere matter of the past that it is not easy for the present

generation to realize them. The manager of a prominent New York journal

enlisted on the English side, who had a strong antipathy to Forrest on

personal grounds, resolved to write him down, cost what it might. A

friend of the actor said to the editor, "You cannot do it; he is too

popular." The editor replied, "The continual dropping of water wears

away the stone," and made his columns pour an incessant rain of satire

and abuse. Many a damaging estimate was levelled against him simply as

the first American tragedian who had by his original power acquired a

national reputation and promised through his increasing imitators to

found a school.

Besides all these sets of hostile regarders, he was misliked as a

man and maligned or disesteemed as an actor by another class, whose

representatives are very numerous, namely, those persons of a feeble

and squeamish constitution and sickly delicacy who could not stand

the powerful shocks he administered to their nerves. The robust and

towering specimens of impassioned manhood which he exhibited, teeming

with fearless energies, constantly breaking into colossal attitudes and

gestures, lightnings of expression and thunderbolts of speech, were

too much for them. Their quivering sensitiveness cowered before his

terrible fire and stride, and shrank from him with fear; and fear is

the parent of hate. Faint ladies, spruce clerks, spindling fops, and

perfumed dandies were horrified and wellnigh thrown into convulsions by

his Gladiator and Jack Cade. Then they vented their own weakness and

ignorance of virile truth in querulous complaints of his measureless

coarseness and ferocity. It is obvious that weaklings will shudder

before such heroic volcanoes of men as Hotspur and Coriolanus and

resent their own terror on its cause. Forrest produced the same effect

when he personated such overwhelming characters on the stage. Made on

that pattern and stocked with ammunition on that scale, he lived as it

were in reality the parts he played in fiction, and was ever, in his

own way and in his own measure, true to nature and life. The lion and

the tiger are not to be toned down to the style of the antelope or the

mouse because timid spectators may desire it for the sparing of their

nerves.

Finally, one more class of play-goers were continually censuring

Forrest, casting blame even on his best portrayals. They had better

grounds for their fault-finding than the others, and were partly

justified in their verdicts, only unjust in their wilful exaggeration

of his defects and ungenerous in their prejudiced denial of his

conspicuous and imposing merits. Reference is now made to the select

class of refined and scholarly minds, exquisitely cultivated in all

directions, who insist that art is distinct from nature, being the

purified and heightened reflection of nature through the mind at one

remove from reality. Exuberance of power and sincerity was the primary

greatness of Forrest as a tragedian. A small but most commanding

portion of the public maintained that this too was the chief foible

and limitation of his excellence, leading him to attempt on the stage

a living resurrection of the crude truth of nature in place of that

idealized softening and tempered reflex which is the genuine province

of art. Shakspeare himself said that the end of playing was and is

not to bring nature herself upon the stage, but to _hold the mirror

up to nature_. The perfected artistic actor does not bring before

his audience the reality itself of life with all its interclinging

entanglements of passion and muscle, but he drops the repulsive

details, all unessential vulgarities, refines and combines the chief

features, harmonizing and heightening them in the process, and shows

the result as a free picture, like the original in form and color and

moving, but without its tearing ruggedness or expense of volition. This

view is a true one, though not the adequate truth in its completeness.

And this criticism is proper, though they who brought it against

Forrest, in their intolerance, urged it beyond its fair application to

him. It never was claimed that he was a perfect artist; it cannot be

honestly denied that he was a great one. As a rule he did, no doubt,

lack that last and most irresistible charm of genius, the easy curbing

of expenditure which is the divine girdle of art. The bewitchment of

the fairest of the goddesses lay in her cestus. The enchanting cestus

of art is continence around strength. Human nature flung back on its

elemental experiences in their extremest energy breaks loose from the

finished forms and manners of polite society, and the conventional

members of polite society are naturally displeased with the player who

presents a specimen of this kind in its tempestuous truth not refined

and tamed to their code. The great characters of Forrest were statues

of their originals, recast in their native moulds in his imagination

and heart, and placed directly on the stage in living action. The

excrescences unremoved by the chisel and file did not lessen their

truth or affect their sublimity. But in the eyes of dilettante critics

who had no free intellect behind their glasses and no generous passions

beneath their gloves, a perception of the marks of the moulds caused

all the heroic grandeur of the images to go for nothing.

It is necessary to bear in mind these six classes of critics in

order justly to understand the career of Forrest as an actor with

the extraordinary amount of depreciation, invective, and ridicule he

encountered as an offset to his surpassing popular success. For before

the cliques of critics spoke, while they were speaking, and after they

had spoken, unaffected by anything they said, the general average of

theatre-goers were played upon in their manliest sympathies by him

as by no other actor of his time, and the great mass of the people

followed him with their loving admiration and praise like a flood. And

in such matters as this, we may be well assured, the permanent judgment

of the multitude is never grandly wrong, however pettily right the

opinion of the opposing few may be.

January 8th, 1834, Forrest wrote to Henry Hart, officer of a literary

society in Albany, the following eminently characteristic letter. The

period of critical transition from youth to manhood which he spent in

Albany had left lingering recollections of interest and gratitude in

him which he gladly availed himself of this opportunity to express in

an act of public spirit.

"SIR,--The laudable zeal you have evinced in forming of the Young Men

of Albany, without regard to individual condition, an Association for

Mutual Improvement, is alike creditable to the heads that projected

and the hearts that resolved it. In a country like ours, where all

men are free and equal, no aristocracy should be tolerated, save

that aristocracy of superior mind, before which none need be ashamed

to bow. Young men of all occupations will now have a place stored

with useful knowledge where at their leisure they may assemble for

mutual instruction and the free interchange of sentiment. A taste for

American letters should be carefully disseminated among them, and

the parasitical opinion cannot be too soon exploded which teaches

that 'nothing can be so good as that which emanates from abroad.' Our

literature should be independent; and with a hearty wish that the

fetters of prejudice which surround it may soon be broken, I enclose

the sum of one hundred dollars to be appropriated to the purchase of

_books purely American_, to be placed in the library for the use of

the young men of Albany."

To this letter an interesting reply was written by the president of the

Association, Amos Dean:

"The Committee propose, sir, to expend your donation in the purchase

of books containing our political history, which, unlike that of most

other nations, is made up of the opinions and acts of a People, and

not of a Court. Our national existence was the commencement of a new

era in the political history of the world. In the commencement and

continuance of that existence, three things are to be regarded,--the

reason, the act, and the consequence. The first is found in the

recorded wisdom of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Hamilton,

Jay, Franklin, and a host of other worthies who shed the brilliant

light of the most gifted order of intellect around the incipient

struggles of an infant nation. The second, in the firm resolves of our

first councils, and the eloquent voice of our early battle-fields. The

third, in the many interesting events of our subsequent history, and

on the living page of our present prosperity.

"These constitute a whole, and the books from which that whole is

derivable must necessarily be '_books purely American_.' We shall

preserve and regard them as monuments of your munificence."

He was now twenty-eight years of age. He had been steadily on the

stage for over twelve years. The regular succession of engagements,

and even the constant repetition of enthusiastic crowds and applause,

began to be monotonous. He had accumulated a fortune of nearly two

hundred thousand dollars, and could afford a season of rest. He felt

that it would be a relief to throw off the professional harness for

a while, and look out upon life from an independent point of view.

He was also well aware that there was much for him yet to learn,

heights in his own art which he was far from having attained, and he

longed for a large interval of exemption from toil and care, wherein

he might quietly apply his faculties to learn, and let his energies

lie fallow for a new lease of exertion in the loftiest field of the

drama. Accordingly, he determined to set apart two years for travel,

observation, study, pleasure, and improvement in the principal

countries of the Old World.

Before his departure he received a public tribute of respect

and affection of such a character and from a collection of such

distinguished men that any man in the country, no matter of what

profession or rank, might well have felt proud to receive it. It took

place on the 25th of July, and the following account of the affair is

condensed from a report which appeared in the New York "Evening Post"

immediately afterwards:

"The intention of Mr. Forrest to visit Europe having been stated in

the public papers, his approaching departure was considered, by a

large number of his fellow-citizens, as presenting a proper occasion

to express to him, by some suitable public tribute, the estimation

in which he is held, alike for those talents which had placed him

at the head of his profession, and those virtues which had endeared

him to his friends. To carry out this object, a meeting was held at

the Shakspeare Hotel, when the subject was fully discussed, and a

committee appointed to consider and report to a subsequent meeting the

mode in which the object should be accomplished, so that the tribute

might be creditable to the taste of those presenting it and worthy of

the high character and merit of him to whom it was to be rendered. In

the mean while, the following gentlemen signed a paper expressing the

desire of the subscribers to take part in the contemplated testimonial:

PHILIP HONE,

CORNELIUS W. LAWRENCE,

OGDEN HOFFMAN,

JOHN LORIMER GRAHAM,

JOHN CRUMBY,

CHARLES L. LIVINGSTON,

DANIEL L. M. PEIXOTTO,

A. A. CAMMANN,

WM. DYMOCK,

GIDEON LEE,

HENRY OGDEN,

THATCHER T. PAYNE,

WILLIAM M. PRICE,

ROBERT H. MORRIS,

JOHN WOODHEAD,

GEORGE MEINELL,

ABRAHAM ASTEN,

WASHINGTON IRVING,

WM. C. BRYANT,

PROSPER M. WETMORE,

WILLIAM LEGGETT,

GEORGE P. MORRIS,

WM. DUNLAP,

GEORGE D. STRONG,

WM. HOLLAND,

JOHN S. BARTLETT,

THOMAS H. PERKINS, JR.,

FRANCIS W. DANA,

WM. F. WHITNEY,

DAVID HOSACK,

JAMES MONROE,

OLIVER M. LOWNDS,

D. P. INGRAHAM,

DANIEL JACKSON,

JAMES M. MILLER,

F. A. TALLMADGE,

JAMES C. SMITH,

WM. T. M'COUN,

ISAAC S. HONE,

JOHN V. GREENFIELD,

WILLIAM TURNER,

WILLIAM P. HALLETT,

JOHN M'KEON,

L. MINTURN,

RICHARD RIKER,

ANDREW WARNER,

J. FENIMORE COOPER,

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK,

WILLIAM P. HAWES,

WM. GILMORE SIMMS,

ROBERT W. WEIR,

R. R. WARD,

WM. HENRY HERBERT,

JAMES LAWSON,

WM. H. DELANO,

NATHANIEL GREENE,

JAMES PHALEN.

"The committee to whom the matter had been referred reported that

a gold medal, with a bust of Mr. Forrest in profile on one side,

surrounded by a legend in these words, _Histriom Optimo_, EDUINO

FORREST, _Viro Præstanti_, and a figure of the genius of Tragedy

with suitable emblems on the other, surrounded, as a legend, with

the following quotation from Shakspeare, '_Great in mouths of wisest

censure_,' would perhaps constitute the most expressive and acceptable

token of those sentiments of admiration and regard which it was the

wish of the subscribers to testify to Mr. Forrest. The report having

been unanimously adopted, the task of drawing up suitable designs was

confided to Mr. Charles C. Ingham. The dies were engraved by Mr. C. C.

Wright.

"In accordance with the suggestions of many citizens, a public dinner

to Mr. Forrest was agreed upon as furnishing the most appropriate

opportunity of presenting to him this token of their regard. To this

end a committee was charged to make the necessary arrangements, and

the following is their invitation addressed to Mr. Forrest, together

with his reply:

"NEW YORK, July 10, 1834.

"To EDWIN FORREST, Esq.

"DEAR SIR,--A number of your friends, learning your intention

shortly to visit Europe, are desirous, before your departure, of an

opportunity of expressing, in some public manner, their sense of your

merits, professional and personal. It would be a source of regret to

them if one so esteemed, while sojourning in foreign lands, should

possess no memorial of the regard entertained for him in his own.

"We have been charged as a committee, with a view to carry this

purpose into execution, to request the pleasure of your company at a

dinner, at the City Hotel, on any day most agreeable to yourself.

"With sincere esteem and respect,

"We are your ob't serv'ts,

WILLIAM DUNLAP,

HENRY OGDEN,

WILLIAM P. HAWES,

GEORGE D. STRONG,

R. R. WARD,

JOHN V. GREENFIELD,

ABRAHAM ASTEN,

PROSPER M. WETMORE.

"WASHINGTON HOTEL, July 12th, 1834.

"GENTLEMEN,--I have had the honor to receive your communication of

the 10th instant, inviting me to dine with a number of my friends at

the City Hotel previous to my approaching departure for Europe, and

signifying a desire to bestow upon me some token of regard, which, as

I journey in foreign lands, may preserve in my memory the friends I

leave in my own.

"I have received too many and too important testimonials from my

friends in New York to render any additional memorial necessary for

the purpose you indicate. But, knowing the pleasure which generous

natures feel in bestowing benefactions, I accept with lively

satisfaction the invitation you have conveyed to me in such grateful

terms; and may be excused if, in doing so, I express my regret that

the object of your kindness is not more worthy so distinguished a mark

of favor.

"With your permission, gentlemen, I will name Friday, the 25th

instant, as the day when it will best comport with the arrangements I

have already made, to meet you as proposed.

"I am, with sentiments of great

respect and regard,

your ob't serv't,

"EDWIN FORREST.

"Messrs. WM. DUNLAP, and others.

"On Friday last, the day named by Mr. Forrest, this gratifying

testimonial of regard for an individual whose character as a citizen,

not less than his genius as an actor, has insured for him general

respect, was carried into effect at the City Hotel. The repast

provided for the occasion by Mr. Jennings, the accomplished director

of that establishment, displayed all that taste and splendor for which

his entertainments are remarkable. At six o'clock a very numerous

company, comprising a large number of our most distinguished and

talented citizens, sat down to the table. The Honorable Wm. T. McCoun,

Vice-Chancellor, presided, assisted by General Prosper M. Wetmore, Mr.

Justice Lownds, and Alderman Geo. D. Strong as Vice-Presidents. On the

right of the President was seated the guest in whose honor the feast

was provided, and on his left the Honorable Cornelius W. Lawrence,

Mayor of the City. Among the guests were the managers of the several

principal theatres in the United States in which the genius of Mr.

Forrest has been most frequently exercised, together with several of

the most esteemed members of the theatrical profession; among them the

veteran Cooper and the inimitable and estimable Placide.

"On the removal of the cloth the following regular toasts were

proposed:

"REGULAR TOASTS.

"1. _The Drama._--The mirror of nature, in which life, like Narcissus,

delights to contemplate its own image.

"2. _Shakspeare._--Like his own Banquo, 'father of a line of

kings'--monarchs who rule with absolute sway the passions and

sympathies of the human heart.

"Previous to offering the third toast, the chairman, Chancellor

McCoun, addressed the company in the following terms:

"To your kindness and partiality, gentlemen, I owe it that the

pleasing duty devolves upon me of consummating the object for which

we are this day met together. To render a suitable acknowledgment

to worth is one of the most grateful employments of generous minds.

But with how much more alacrity is such an office undertaken when

the worth is of so mingled a character that it equally commands the

admiration of our intellects and the applause of our hearts, and when

it is to be exercised not for merit of foreign growth and already

stamped with foreign approbation, but for the offspring of our own

soil and nursed into fame by our own encouragement.

"Eight years ago a youth came to this city unheralded and almost

unknown. His first introduction to the community was through one of

those acts of kindness on his part by which his whole subsequent

career has been distinguished. To add a few dollars to the slender

means of a poor but industrious and worthy native actor, this youth,

his diffidence overcome by his sympathy, appeared in the arduous

character of Othello before a metropolitan audience. What was the

astonishment and delight of the spectators when, instead of a raw

and ungainly tyro, they beheld one who needed only a few finishing

touches to render him the peer of the proudest in his art! A rival

theatre was then rapidly rising under the superintendence of a man

who has had few superiors as a director of the mimic world of the

stage. To this theatre the unheralded youth (now the 'observed of all

observers') was speedily transferred, and during the most brilliant

period of its history was its 'bright particular star.' Allured by the

strange and attractive light, the wealth, the talent, the fashion and

respectability of the city nightly crowded its benches. The carriages

of the luxurious were drawn up in long retinue before its doors,

and the laborious left their tasks and repaired in throngs to sit

entranced beneath the actor's potent spell. Not Goodman's Fields, when

Garrick burst, a kindred prodigy, on the astonished London audience,

displayed nightly a gayer scene nor resounded with heartier plaudits.

"Such success naturally elicited from rival theatres the most

splendid offers; yet, though earning a poor stipend and held but

by a verbal tie, this honorable boy--his prospects altered but his

mind the same--gave promptly such replies as showed that he valued

integrity at its proper price. I shall be pardoned for thus adverting

to one such instance among the many that might be adduced as finely

illustrative of his character to whose honor it is mentioned.

"The time soon came, however, when he began to reap a harvest of

profit as well as fame. And one of the first uses to which he turned

his prosperity was to arouse the dramatic talent of his countrymen.

The fruits of his liberality and judgment are several of the most

popular and meritorious tragedies which have been produced on the

modern stage. One of them, wholly American in its character and

incidents, has been performed more frequently and with more advantage

to the theatres than any other play in the same period of time on

either side of the Atlantic. Though not without defects as a drama,

it has the merit of presenting a strong and natural portrait of one

of the most remarkable warriors of a race the last relics of which

are fast melting away before the advancing tide of civilization.

Yet, whatever the intrinsic qualities of the production, no one

has witnessed it without feeling that its popularity is mainly to

be ascribed to the bold, faithful, and spirited personation of the

principal character; and, as the original of Metamora died with King

Philip, so his scenic existence will terminate with the actor who

introduced him to the stage. Among the other dramatic productions

which the same professional perspicuity and generous feeling gave

rise to are two or three of extraordinary merit. One of them, The

Gladiator, for scenic effect, strongly-marked and well-contrasted

characters, and fine nervous language, is surpassed by few dramas of

modern times.

"But while this young actor was thus encouraging with liberal hand the

literary genius of our countrymen, many an admiring audience beheld

through the medium of his personations the noblest creations of the

noblest bards of the Old World 'live o'er the scene' in all that

reality which only acting gives.

"''Tis by the mighty actor brought,

Illusion's perfect triumphs come;

Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And sculpture to be dumb.'

"Gentlemen, I have thus far dwelt on points in this performer's

history and character with which you are all acquainted. There are

other topics on which I might touch--did I not fear to invade the

sanctuary of the heart--not less entitled to your admiration. But

there are some feelings in breasts of honor and delicacy which, though

commendable, cannot brook exposure; as there are plants which flourish

in the caves of ocean that wither when brought to the light of day. I

shall therefore simply say that in his private relations, as in his

public career, he has _performed well his part_, and made esteem a

twin sentiment with admiration in every heart that knows him. I need

not tell you, gentlemen, that I speak of EDWIN FORREST.

"Mr. Forrest is on the eve of departure for foreign lands. To a man

combining so many claims on our regard, it has been thought proper

by his fellow-citizens to present a farewell token of friendship and

respect,--a token which may at once serve to keep him mindful that

Americans properly appreciate the genius and worth of their own land,

and which may testify to foreigners the high place he holds in our

esteem.

"Mr. FORREST, I now place this memorial in your hands. It is one in

which many of your countrymen have been emulous to bear a part. It

is a proud proof of unusual virtues and talents, and as such may be

proudly worn. You will mingle in throngs where jewelled insignia

glitter on titled breasts; but yours may justly be the reflection that

few badges of distinction are the reward of qualities so deserving of

honor as those attested by the humbler memorial which now rests upon

your bosom.

"Gentlemen, I propose to you,--

"EDWIN FORREST--Estimable for his virtues, admirable for his talents.

Good wishes attend his departure, and warm hearts will greet his

return.

"The speaker was interrupted at different points of his address with

the most enthusiastic applause, and on its conclusion the apartment

resounded with unanimous, hearty, and prolonged cheers, attesting at

once the concurrence of his hearers in the justness of his sentiments

and their sense of the happy and eloquent language in which they

were conveyed. When this applause at length subsided, Mr. Forrest

rose, and in a style of simple and unaffected modesty returned his

acknowledgments in a speech, of which we believe the following is

nearly an accurate report:

"Mr. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN,--A member of a profession which brings

me nightly to speak before multitudes, it might seem affectation in

me to express how much I am overcome by these distinguishing marks of

your kindness and approbation. I stand not now before you to repeat

the sentiments of the dramatist, but in my own poor phrase to give

utterance to feelings which even the language of poetry could not too

strongly embody; and I feel this evening how much easier it is to

counterfeit emotions on the mimic scene of the stage than to repress

the real and embarrassing yet grateful agitation which this rich token

of your favor has occasioned. My thanks must therefore be rendered

in the most simple and unstudied language, for I feel 'I am no actor

here.'

"You have made allusion in terms of flattering kindness to a period of

my life I can never contemplate without emotions of the most thrilling

and pleasurable nature,--a period which beheld me, with a suddenness

of transition more like a dream than reality, one day a poor, unknown,

and unfriended boy, and the next surrounded by 'troops of friends,'

counsellors ready to advise, and generous hearts prodigal of regard.

In my immature and unschooled efforts lenient critics saw, or thought

they saw, some latent evidences of talent, and, with a generosity

rarely equalled, crowded around me with encouragement in payment of

anticipated desert. The same spirit of kindness which matured the germ

continued its fostering influence through each successive development;

and now, at the end of eight years (eight _little_ years,--how brief

they have been made by you!), with unexhausted, nay, increasing

munificence, that spirit exercises itself in bestowing a memento of

esteem as much beyond the deserts of the man as its early plaudits

exceeded the merits of the boy.

"If, in the course of a career by you made both pleasant and

prosperous, I have appropriated a portion of your bounty to the

encouragement of dramatic literature, I have, as it were, acted as

your almoner, and have found my reward in the readiness with which you

have extended in its support the same cherishing hand that sustained

me in my youthful efforts. One of the writers whose services, at

my invitation, were given to the drama, after having proved his

ability by the production of a play the popularity of which you have

not exaggerated, lies in a recent and untimely grave. The other, to

whose noble Roman tragedy you have also particularly alluded, is now

pursuing a successful career of literature in another land; and it

is a source of no little pleasure to think that I have been in some

measure instrumental in calling into exercise a mind which, if I do

not overestimate its powers, will add a fresh leaf to that unfading

chaplet with which Irving and Cooper and Bryant and Halleck, with a

few other kindred spirits, have already graced the escutcheon of our

country.

"One allusion in your remarks has awakened emotions of the keenest

sensibility. It brings home to me more strongly than all the rest

how _deeply_ I am indebted to you; for you have not only strewn my

own path with flowers, but enabled me to discharge with efficiency

the obligations of nature to orphan sisters and a widowed parent. To

you I owe it that after a period of adversity I have been permitted

to render her latter days pleasant 'and rock the cradle of reposing

age.' So far, however, from any compliment being due to me on this

score, I may rather chide myself with having fallen short in my filial

duties. Yet were it otherwise, how could he be less than a devoted son

and affectionate brother who has experienced parental kindness and

fraternal friendship _from a whole community_?

"This token of your regard I need not tell you how dearly I shall

prize. I am about to visit foreign lands. In a few months I shall

probably behold the tomb of Garrick,--Garrick, the pupil of Johnson,

the companion and friend of statesmen and wits,--Garrick, who now

sleeps surrounded by the relics of kings and heroes, orators and

bards, the magnates of the earth. I shall contemplate the mausoleum

which encloses the remains of Talma,--Talma, the familiar friend of

him before whom monarchs trembled. I shall tread that classic soil

with which is mingled the dust of Roscius,--of Roscius, the preceptor

of Cicero, whose voice was lifted for him at the forum and whose

tears were shed upon his grave. While I thus behold with feelings of

deferential awe the last resting-places of those departed monarchs of

the drama, how will my bosom kindle with pride at the reflection that

I, so inferior in desert, have yet been honored with a token as proud

as ever rewarded their most successful efforts! I shall then look upon

this memorial; but, while my eye is riveted within its 'golden round,'

my mind will travel back to this scene and this hour, and my heart be

with you in my native land.

"Mr. President, in conclusion, let me express my grateful sense of

your goodness by proposing as a sentiment,--

"_The Citizens of New York_--Distinguished not more by intelligence,

enterprise, and integrity than by that generous and noble spirit which

welcomes the stranger and succors the friendless.

"This speech was delivered with remarkable feeling and dignity, and

received the most earnest applause of every one present. The regular

toasts were continued.

"3. _Talent and Worth_--The only stars and garters of our nobility.

"4. _Hallam and Henry_--The Columbus and Vespucius of the Drama,--who

planted its standard in the New World.

"5. _Garrick and Kean_--The one a fixed and ever-shining light of the

stage; the other an erratic star, which dazzled men by its brightness

and perplexed them by its wanderings.

"6. _Kemble and Talma_--Their genius has identified their memory with

the undying fame of Shakspeare and Racine.

"7. _George Frederick Cooke_--A link furnished by the Stage to connect

the Old World with the New. Britain nursed his genius, America

sepulchres his remains.

"8. _The Dramatic Genius of our Country_--'The ruddy brightness of its

rise gives token of a goodly day.'

"These sentiments having evoked suitable responses, letters were read

from the manager of the Park Theatre and a famous American comedian.

"THEATRE, July 24, 1834.

"GENTLEMEN,--I received your kind invitation to the dinner to be given

by his friends to Mr. Forrest on Friday, 25th instant, and sincerely

regret that professional duties will prevent my having the pleasure

of attending it. I regret my absence for more than one reason, as

nothing would give me greater pleasure than to witness so gratifying

a tribute of respect paid to a man to whom the stage is under so

many obligations. I do not allude to his talents, splendid as they

are, but to the effect that his exemplary good conduct and uniform

respectability of private character must have on the profession. I

trust that the honor conferred on Mr. Forrest on that day will induce

many of our brethren to follow his example, and serve to convince them

that the profession of an actor will never disgrace the professor if

the professor does not disgrace the profession.

"With much respect, gentlemen, I remain your obedient servant,

"E. SIMPSON.

"JAMAICA, L.I., 24th July, 1834.

"GENTLEMEN,--I have the honor of acknowledging your highly flattering

invitation to be present at a dinner to be given by the friends of

Mr. Forrest on Friday next at the City Hotel, but find to-day that

imperative and unalterable circumstances will prevent my being in

town; else, be assured, no one would have heartier pleasure in being

present on any occasion of paying a tribute of public respect to

so estimable a friend and deservedly distinguished an actor as our

countryman, Edwin Forrest, Esq.

"Allow me to thank the highly-respected gentlemen you represent, and

yourselves individually, for the esteemed compliment extended to me on

this interesting and patriotic occasion.

"I have the honor to be, gentlemen, your very obliged servant,

"JAMES H. HACKETT.

"Among the numerous volunteer toasts drank in the course of the

evening were the following:

"_By the President_--William Dunlap: to him the American stage owes

a threefold debt. Its director, his liberality elevated it into

consequence. Its dramatist, his genius peopled it with admired

creations. Its historian, he has embalmed the memory of its professors

and given permanence to their fame.

"_By the First Vice-President_--Nature and Art: the stage has united

the antipodes of philosophy.

"_By the Third Vice-President_--The Drama: the handmaid of refinement;

may the genius that conceives and the talent that embodies her fair

creations blend the dignity of virtue with the allurements of fancy!

"_By the Hon. Cornelius W. Lawrence_--The Stage: talent may

distinguish, but virtue elevates, its professors.

"_By Thomas A. Cooper_--The Histrionic Art: may it prove triumphant

over the attacks of priestcraft and fanaticism!--equally inimical to

religion and the stage.

"_By Nathaniel Greene, of Boston_--A kind welcome and just estimate

for foreign talent,--a proud confidence in that of native growth.

"_By William Leggett_--Shakspeare: a conqueror greater than Alexander.

The warrior's victories were bounded by the earth, and he vainly wept

for other worlds to conquer. The poet 'exhausted worlds, and then

imagined new.'"

The festivities were maintained with the greatest zest till early

morning, when the company broke up in unalloyed pleasure, leaving with

their guest the recollection of an occasion of the most flattering

nature. And shortly afterwards, when he embarked, sixty or seventy of

his closest friends went several miles down the harbor in a yacht.

Among them were Leggett and Halleck. Leggett, between whom and Forrest

had grown a love as ardent and heroic as that of the famed antique

examples, threw his arms around him with a tearful "God bless and

keep you!" Halleck said, "May you have hundreds of beautiful hours in

beautiful places, and come back to us the same as you go away, only

enriched!" Forrest replied, pressing his hand, "That is indeed the

wish of a poet for his friend. You may be sure when I am at Marathon,

at Athens, at Constantinople, I shall often recall your lines on Marco

Bozzaris, and be delighted to link with them the memory of this your

parting benediction."

His friends did not say good-bye until they had through their spokesman

commended him to the special graces of the captain. Then, wishing him

a happy voyage, they joined hands, gave him twenty-four cheers, and

sailed reluctantly apart, they to their wonted ways, he to a foreign

continent.

Leaving him on the deck, with folded arms, his chin on his breast,

gazing sadly at the receding West, we will now endeavor to form a just

estimate of his acting in his favorite characters at that time. We

will try to paint him livingly, just as he was in that fresh period of

his popularity and glory, the proud young giant and democrat of the

American Stage.

CHAPTER IX.

SENSATIONAL AND ARTISTIC ACTING.--CHARACTERS OF PHYSICAL AND

MENTAL REALISM.--ROLLA.--TELL.--DAMON.--BRUTUS.--VIRGINIUS.

--SPARTACUS.--METAMORA.

A NATION beginning its career as a colony is naturally dependent on the

parent country for its earliest examples in culture. Some time must

elapse; wealth, leisure, and other conditions favorable to spiritual

enrichment and free aspiration must be developed, before it can create

ideals of its own and achieve æsthetic triumphs in accordance with

them. Such was the case with America. Its mental dependence on England

continued long after its civil allegiance had ceased. Little by little,

however, the colonial temper and servile habit were repudiated in

one province after another of the national activity. Jefferson was

our first audacious and fruitful original thinker in politics. In

painting, Stuart arose as a bold and profound master, with no teacher

but nature. In fiction, Cooper opened a rich field, and reaped a

harvest of imperishable renown. In religion, the inspired genius of

Channing appeared with a leavening impulse which still works. And in

poetry, Bryant was the earliest who treated indigenous themes with a

distinction which has made his name ineffaceable.

In no other region of the national life was the colonial dependence

so complete and so prolonged as in the drama. The chief plays and

actors alike were imported. Scarcely did anything else dare to lift its

head on the theatrical boards. All was servile imitation or lifeless

reproduction, until Forrest fought his way to the front, burst into

fame, and by the conspicuous brilliance of his success heralded a

new day for his profession in this country. Forrest, as an eloquent

writer said a quarter of a century ago, was the first great native

actor who brought to the illustration of Shakspeare and other poets

a genius essentially American and at the same time individual,--a

genius distinguished by its freedom from all trammels and subservience

to schools, by its force in a self-reliance which seemed loyalty to

nature, and by its freshness in an ideal which gave to all his efforts

a certain moral elevation,--a genius which, after every deduction,

still remained as a something peculiarly noble and enkindling, highly

original in itself, and distinctively American. This is certainly his

historic place; and it was perhaps more fortunate than calamitous that

he was left in his early years so largely without teachers and without

models, to develop his own resources in his early wanderings as a

strolling player in the West by direct experience of the soul within

him and direct observation of the impassioned unconventional life about

him. He was thus forced to shape out of the mint of his own nature the

form and stamp and coloring of his conceptions. There was fitness and

significance in such a genius as his maturing and pouring itself out

under the shade of the Western woods, rising up amid their grandeur

clear and simple as a spring, till, fed and strengthened, it leaped

forth fresh and thundering as a torrent.

In characterizing Forrest as a tragedian by the epithet American, it

is necessary that we should understand what is meant by the word in

such a connection. We mean that he was an intense ingrained democrat.

Democracy asserts the superiority of man to his accidents. Its genius

is contemptuous of titular claims or extrinsic conditions in comparison

with intrinsic truth and merit. Its glance pierces through all pompous

circumstances and pretences, to the personal reality of the man. If

that be royal and divine, it is ready to worship; if not, it pays no

false or hollow tribute, no matter what outward prestige of attraction

there may be or what clamor of threats. That is the proper temper and

historic ideal of our republic; and that was Forrest in the very centre

of his soul, both as a man and as an actor.

But his individuality was in the general sense as deeply and positively

human as it was American or democratic. That is to say, he was an

affirmative, believing, sympathetic character, not a skeptical,

negative, or sneering one. He so vividly loved in their plain and

concrete reality his own parents, brothers and sisters, friends,

native land, that he could give vivid expression to such sentiments in

abstract generality without galvanizing his nerves with any artificial

volition. His affections preponderated over his antipathies. He was

not fond of badinage, but full of downright earnestness. He loved

the sense of being, enjoyed it, was grateful for its privileges,

and delighted to contemplate the phenomena of society. He had the

keenest love for little children, and the deepest reverence for old

age. He valued the goods of life highly, and labored to accumulate

them. He had a vivid sensibility for the beauties of nature. He had

an enthusiastic admiration of great men, and a ruling desire for the

prizes of honor and fame. His soul thrilled at the recital of glorious

deeds, and his tears started at a great thought or a sublime image or

a tender sentiment. Friendship for man, love for woman, a kindling

patriotism, a profound feeling of the domestic ties, a burning passion

for liberty, and an unaffected reverence for God, were dominant chords

in his nature. He had no patience with those vapid weaklings, those

disappointed aspirants or negative dreamers, who think everything

on earth a delusion or a temptation, nature a cheat, man a phantom

or a fool, history a toy, life a wretched chaos, death an unknown

horror, and nothing between worth an effort. He was, on the contrary,

a wholesome realist, full of throbbing vitality and eagerness,

embracing the natural goods of existence with a sharp relish, and

putting a worshipful estimate on the ideal glories of humanity.

Intellect, instinct, and affection in him were all alive,--free and

teeming springs of personal power. This rich fulness of positive life

and passion in himself both opened to him the elemental secrets of

experience and enabled him to play effectively on the sympathies of

other men.

Let such a man, trained under such circumstances, endowed with a

magnificent physique, overflowing with energy and fire, become an

actor, and it is easy to see what will be the leading ideal exemplified

in his personations. Exactly what this dominant ideal was will be

illustrated in the descriptions which are to follow. But a clear

statement of it in advance will aid us the better to appreciate those

descriptions.

The rank of any work of art is determined by the ideal expressed in

it, and the accuracy of its expression. As has been well said, no

art better illustrates this fact than the art of acting. Take, for

instance, the genius of Kemble. His ideal was authority. He was never

so impressive as in the illustration of a king or ruler. In Coriolanus,

in Macbeth, in Wolsey, in every character that gave opportunity for it,

he was ever expressing the sense of mental or official power as the

noblest of human attributes. So the ideal of Cooke was skepticism. He

was always best as a social infidel, uttering the bitterest sarcasms.

It was this faculty that rendered his Man of the World so great a

triumph. The ideal of Kean, again, was retribution. He was grandest as

the sufferer and avenger of great wrongs. And the ideal of Macready was

that of Kemble modified by its more fretful and impatient expression,

making him ever most effective in the display of some form of pride or

wounded honor, as in Werner, Richelieu, Melantius.

In distinction from the special ideals of these and the other

most celebrated tragedians of the past, the ideal of Forrest was

unquestionably the democratic ideal of universal manhood, a deep sense

of natural and moral heroism, sincerity, friendship, and faith. This

imperial self-reliance and instinctive honesty, this unperverted and

unterrified personality poised in the grandest natural virtues of

humanity, is the key-note or common chord to the whole range of his

conceptions, on which all their varieties are modulated, from Rolla

and Tell to Metamora and Spartacus, from Damon and Brutus to Othello

and Lear. Fearless, faithful manhood penetrates them all, is the great

elevating principle which makes them harmonics of one essential ideal.

To have exemplified so sublime an ideal, in so many grand forms, each

as clearly defined as a sculptured statue, during a half-century,

before applauding millions of his countrymen, is what stamps Forrest

and makes him worthy of his fame, singling him out in the rising

epoch of his country's greatness as one of the most imposing and not

unworthiest of her types of nationality.

There are two contrasted styles of the dramatic art which have long

been recognized and discriminated in the two schools of acting, the

Romantic and the Classic. Before proceeding to the best rôles of

Forrest in his earlier period, it is indispensable that we clearly

seize the essence of the distinction between these two schools.

Otherwise we shall fail to see the originality and importance of the

relation in which he stood to them.

The one school, in its separate purity, is sensational or natural,

exhibiting characters of physical and mental realism; the other

is reflective or artistic, representing characters of imaginative

portraiture. The former springs from strong and sincere impulses,

the latter from clear and mastered perceptions. That is based on the

instincts and passions, and is predominantly imitative or reproductive;

this rests on the intellect and imagination, and is predominantly

creative. The one projects the thing in reflex life, as it exists in

reality; the other reveals it, as in a glass. That is nature brought

alive on the stage; this is art repeating nature refined at one mental

remove. They resemble and contrast each other as the hurtless image

of the bird mirrored in the lake would correspond with its concrete

cause above, could it, while yet remaining a mere reflection, address

our other senses as it now does the eye alone. The sensational acting

of crude nature is characteristically sympathetic and mimetic in its

origin, enslaved, expensive of force, and mainly seated in the nervous

centres of the body. The artistic acting of the accomplished master is

characteristically spiritual and self-creative in its origin, free,

economical of exertion, and mainly seated in the nervous centres of

the brain. The one actor lives his part, and is the character he

represents; the other plays his part, and truly portrays the character

he imagines.

The Classic style is self-controlled, stately, deliberately does what

it consciously predetermines to do, trusts as much to the expressive

power of attitudes and poses as to facial changes and voice. It

elaborates its rôle by systematic critical study, leaving nothing

to chance, to caprice, or to instinct. The Romantic style permeates

itself with the situations and feeling of its rôle, and then is full of

impetuosity and abandon, giving free vent to the passions of the part

and open swing to the energies of the performer. The one is marked by

careful consistency and studious finish, the other by impulsive truth,

abrupt force, electric bursts. That abounds in the refinements of

polished art, this abounds in the sensational effects of aroused and

uncovered nature. The former is adapted to delight the cultivated Few,

the latter thrills the unsophisticated Many.

Now, it was the originality of Forrest that he combined in a most

fresh and impressive manner the fundamental characteristics of both

these schools,--in his first period with an undoubted preponderance

of the characters of physical realism, but in his second period with

an unquestionable preponderance of the characters of imaginative

portraiture. He was from the first both an artistic and a sensational

actor. None of his great predecessors ever came upon the stage with

conceptions more patiently studied, wrought up with a more complete

consistency in every part, or with the perspective, the foreshortening,

the lights and shades, arranged with more conscientious fidelity. His

idea of a character might sometimes, perhaps, be questioned, but the

clearness with which he grasped his idea, and the thorough harmony

with which he put it forth and sustained it, could not be questioned.

In this respect he was one of the most consummate of dramatic artists.

And as for the other side of the picture, the spontaneous sincerity and

irresistible force of his demonstrations of the great passions of the

human heart were almost unprecedented in the effects they wrought.

In an accurate use of the words, sensational acting would be acting

that took its origin in the senses and passed thence through the

muscles without the intervention of the mind. This is the acting

learned by the parrot, the dog, or the monkey, and by the mere mimic.

Artistic acting, on the other hand, is acting which originates in the

creative mind and is freely sent thence through the proper channels

of expression. The true definition of art is _feeling passed through

thought and fixed in form_. When the intellectualized feeling is fixed

in its just form, it should be made over to the automatic nerves, and

the brain be relieved from the care of its oversight and direction.

Then playing becomes beautiful, because it is at ease in unconscious

spontaneity. Otherwise, it often becomes repulsive to the delicate

observer, because it is laborious. This was the one defect of Forrest

which lamed him in the supreme height of his great art. His brain

continued to do the work. There was often too much volition in his

play, causing a muscular friction and an organic expense which made the

sensitive shrink, and which only the robust could afford. But no one

was more completely an artist in always passing his emotions through

his thought, knowing exactly what he meant to do and how he would do it.

The word melodramatic properly describes an action in which the

movement is physical rather than mental, and in which more is made

of the interest of the situations than of the revelation of the

characters. For example, the pantomimic expression of great passions is

melodramatic. In this sense Forrest often produced the highest effects

where the subject and the scene, the logic of the situation, required

it. But in the popular sense of the term, which makes it synonymous

with crudity and falsity, hollow extravagance, a vulgar aiming at a

sensation by exaggeration or artifices which disregard the harmonious

fitness of things, no actor could be more free from the vice. He

was always sincere, always earnest, always careful of the sustained

congruity of his representation. And within these limits, surely the

more intense the sensation he could produce, the better. Sensation

is the very thing desired in attending a play. The spectators know

enough for their present purpose; they want to be made to feel more

keenly, more purely, more nobly. Power and perfection on the lowest

level are superior to weakness and failure on that level, and are

not incompatible with power and perfection on all the higher levels,

but rather tributary to them. Did we not desire to be strong rather

than weak, to be handsome rather than ugly, to be admired rather than

scorned, all aspiration would cease, and the human race stagnate and

end. To be capable of such astounding outbursts of power and passion

as to electrify all who behold, curdle their very marrow, and cause

them ever after to remember you with wondering interest and fruitful

imitation, is a glorious endowment, worthy of our envy. To sneer at it

as sensationalism gives proof of a mean disposition or a morbid soul.

In the same sense in which Forrest was melodramatic, God and Nature

themselves are so. What can be more genuinely sensational than Niagara,

Mont Blanc, the earthquake, the tempest, the forked flash of the

lightning, the crashing roll of the thunder, the crouch of the tiger,

the dart of the anaconda, the shriek of the swooping eagle, the prance

of the war-horse in his proud pomp? And the attributes of all these

belong to man, with additions of nameless grandeur, terror, and beauty

beside, making him an incarnate representative of God on the earth.

To see Forrest in Lear, or Salvini in Saul, is to feel this. True

sensationalism, banished in our tame times from the selfish and servile

walks of common life, is the very desideratum and glory of the Stage.

ROLLA.

One of the first characters in which Forrest enjoyed great popularity

was that of Rolla, the Peruvian hero. The play of "The Spaniards in

Peru," by Kotzebue, as rewritten by Sheridan from a paraphrase in

English, was for a long time a favorite with the public. It brought the

adventurers and wonderful achievements of the most romantic kingdom

in Christendom into picturesque combination with the strange scenes,

simplicity, and superstition of the newly-discovered transatlantic

world, and was full of music, pomp, pictures, poetic situations, and

processions. In literary style, the knowing critics call it tawdry and

bombastic; in ethical tone, sentimental and inflated. But the average

audiences, especially of a former generation, were not fastidious

censors. They went to the theatre less to judge and sneer than to be

moved with sympathy, enjoyment, and admiration. And they found this

play rich in strong appeals to the better instincts of their moral

nature. What the blasé found turgid, affected, or ludicrous, the

unsophisticated felt to be eloquent, poetic, and noble. For the fair

appreciation of a piece of acting, assuredly this latter point of view

is preferable to the former; for tragedy is a form of poetry, and has

as one of its purest functions the revelation of the moral ingredients

of man, lifted, enlarged, and glorified in its mirror of art.

Rolla is depicted as simple, grand, a nobleman of nature, frank,

ardent, impulsive, magnanimous,--his own truth and heroism investing

him with an invisible robe and crown of royalty. It was a rôle

precisely adapted to the young tragedian whose own soul it so well

reflected. Endowed with all the chivalrous sentiments, expansive

and kindling, uncurbed by the nil admirari standards of fashionable

breeding, he could fill up every extravagant phrase of the part without

any feeling of extravagance.

Pizarro and his followers are pictured throughout the play in an

odious light, as tyrants assailing the Peruvians without provocation

and slaughtering them without mercy. The sympathies of Las Casas and

of the noble Alonzo have been alienated from their own countrymen

and transferred to the barbarians, who are represented in the most

favorable colors as honest, affectionate, brave, standing in defence of

their liberty and their altars. Alonzo, disgusted and shocked by the

atrocities of Pizarro, has joined the Peruvians, and has been placed in

conjunction with Rolla at the head of their forces. The aged Orozembo,

seized by the Spaniards and brought before their leader, is questioned,

"Who is this Rolla joined with Alonzo in command?" He replies, "I will

answer that; for I love to repeat the hero's name. Rolla, the kinsman

of the king, is the idol of our army; in war, a tiger; in peace, more

gentle than the lamb. Cora was once betrothed to him; but, finding

she preferred Alonzo, he resigned his claim, to friendship and her

happiness." Pizarro exclaims, "Romantic savage! I shall meet this Rolla

soon." "Thou hadst better not," replies Orozembo; "the terrors of his

eye would strike thee dead."

In the next scene the way is still further prepared for the impression

of his appearance. His beloved Alonzo and Cora are discerned playing

with their child in front of a wood. They talk of Rolla, of his

sacrifice for them, and of his noble qualities. Shouts arise, when

Alonzo says, "It is Rolla setting the guard. He comes." At that instant

the sonorous tones of his voice are heard from outside the stage,

like the martial clang of a trumpet, uttering the words, "Place them

on the hill fronting the Spanish camp." Every eye is fixed, the whole

audience lean forward as he enters, and in a flash the magnetic spell

is on them, and they breathe and feel as one man. The stately ease of

his athletic port, his deep square chest, broad shoulders, and columnar

neck, his frank brow, with the mild, glowing, open eyes, the warm blood

mantling the brave and wooing face, seize the collective sympathy of

the assembly, and they break into wild cheering. He seems to stand

there, in his barbaric costume and majestic attitude, as a romantic

picture stereoscoped by nature herself. And when, in reply to the

exclamation of Alonzo, "Rolla, my friend, my benefactor, how can our

lives repay the obligations which we owe thee?" he says, "Pass them in

peace and bliss; let Rolla witness it, and he is overpaid,"--the very

soul of friendship and nobility seems to flow in the sweet music of his

liquid gutturals, and the charm is complete.

From this point onward to the close all was moulded and wrought up in

perfect keeping. He had fashioned to himself a complete image of what

Rolla should be in accordance with the conception in the play, his

carriage, walk, and attitudes, his style of gesture, his physiognomy,

his tone and habit of voice. He had imprinted this idea so deeply in

his brain, and had trained himself so carefully to its consistent

manifestation, that his portrayal on the stage had all the unity of

design and precision of detail which characterize the work of a

masterly painter. Instead of using canvas, pigment, and brush, he

painted his part in the air in living pantomime. In all his rôles this

was his manner more and more up to the crowning period of his career.

He gave extraordinary effectiveness to the famous address which Rolla

pronounces to the Peruvian warriors on the eve of battle, by the manly

truth and simplicity of his delivery,--"My brave associates, partners

of my toil, my feelings, and my fame." Instead of launching forth in a

swollen and mechanical declamation, he spoke with the straightforward

truth and the varied and hearty inflection of nature; and his honest

earnestness woke responsive echoes in every breast. Like Macklin and

Garrick on the English stage, Talma on the French, and Devrient on the

German, Forrest on the American was a bold and original innovator on

the inveterate elocutionary mannerism of actors embodied in what is

universally known as theatrical delivery. For the mouthing formality,

the torpid noisiness, the strained monotony and forced cadences of

the routine players, these men of genius substituted--only enlarging

the scale of power--the abruptness, the changes, the conversational

vivacity of tone, emphasis, and inflection, which are natural to a free

man with a free voice played upon by the genuine passions of life. This

was one of the chief excellences and attractions of Forrest throughout

his professional course. He was ever a man uttering thoughts and

sentiments,--not an elocutionist displaying his trade.

Alonzo, filled with a presentiment of death, charged his friend, in

such an event, to take Cora for his wife and adopt their child. Rolla,

finding after the battle that Alonzo was a prisoner, repeated his

parting message to his wife. Cora's suspicion was aroused, and she

accused him of deserting his friend for the sake of securing her. Then

was shown a fine picture of contending emotions in Rolla. Disinterested

and heroic to the last degree, to be charged with such baseness, and

that, too, by the woman whom he loved and revered,--it stung him to

the quick. Injured honor, proud indignation, mortified affection, and

magnanimous resolution were seen flying from his soul through his form

and face. He determines to rescue Alonzo by piercing to his prison and

assuming his place. Disguised as a monk, he asks the sentinel to admit

him to the prisoner. Being refused, he tries to bribe the sentinel.

This fails, and he appeals to him by nobler motives, revealing himself

as the friend of Alonzo, who has come to bear his last words to his

wife and child. The sentinel relents. Rolla lifts his eyes to heaven,

and says, "O holy Nature, thou dost never plead in vain!" and rushes

into the arms of his friend. After an earnest controversy, Alonzo

changes dress with him, and escapes, Rolla exclaiming, with a sigh of

satisfaction, "Now, Cora, didst thou not wrong me? This is the first

time I ever deceived man. If I am wrong, forgive me, God of Truth!"

All this was done with a sincerity and energy irresistibly contagious.

And when Elvira has armed him with a dagger and led him to the couch

of the sleeping Pizarro, when, instead of slaying his foe, he wakens

him and drops the weapon, showing how superior a heathen can be to a

Christian, and when the tyrant calls in his guards and orders them to

seize the hapless Elvira, the contrast of the confronting Rolla and

Pizarro, the example of godlike magnanimity and its foil of unnatural

depravity, stands in an illumination of moral splendor that thrills

every heart.

Two more scenes remained to carry the triumph of Forrest in the part

to its culmination. The child of Alonzo and Cora, in ignorance of who

he is, has been captured by the Spanish soldiers, and is brought in.

Pizarro bids them toss the Peruvian imp into the sea. With a start and

look of alternating horror and love, Rolla cries, "Gracious Heaven,

it is Alonzo's child!" "Ha!" exclaims Pizarro: "welcome, thou pretty

hostage. Now is Alonzo again in my power." After vain expostulation,

Rolla prostrates himself before the cruel captain, saying, "Behold

me at thy feet, thy willing slave, if thou wilt release the child."

Other actors, including the cold and stately Kemble, as they spoke

these words, sank directly on their knees. But Forrest introduced a

by-play of startling power, full of the passionate warmth of nature.

Regarding Pizarro with an amazement made of surprise and scorn waxing

into noble anger, he is seen making the strongest exertion to refrain

from rushing on the tyrant and striking him down. He begins to kneel.

Half-way in the slow descent, repugnance to stoop his manhood before

such baseness checks him, and he partly rises, when a glance at the

child overcomes his hesitation, and he sinks swiftly on his knees. The

Spaniard replies, "Rolla, thou art free to go; the boy remains." With

the rapidity of lightning, Rolla snatches the child and lifts him over

his left shoulder, and, waving his sword, cries, in clarion accents,

"Who moves one step to follow me dies on the spot!" He strikes down

three of the guards who oppose him, and rushes across a bridge at the

back of the stage. The soldiers fire, and a shot strikes him as he

vanishes with the child held proudly aloft. The view changes to the

Peruvian court. The king is seen with his nobles, and with Alonzo and

Cora distracted at the loss of their child. Shouts are heard. "Rolla!

Rolla!" The hero staggers in, bleeding, ghastly, and faint, and places

the child in its mother's arms, with an exquisite touch of nature

first drawing the little face down to his own and planting a kiss on

it, staining it from his bleeding wounds in the act. She exclaims,

"Oh, God, there is blood upon him!" He replies, "'Tis mine, Cora."

Alonzo says, "Thou art dying, Rolla." He answers, faintly, "For thee

and Cora." One long gasp, a wavering on his feet, a convulsion of his

chest, and he sinks in an inanimate heap.

The truth and power with which all this was done were attested by

the crowds that thronged to see it, their intense emotion, and the

universal praise for many years awarded to it.

TELL.

Another chosen part of Forrest, in which he was received with

extraordinary favor, was that of William Tell. This play, like the

former, had a basis of untutored love and magnanimity; but the romantic

heroism of the character was less remote to the American mind, less

strained in ideality, than that of Rolla. The plot was simpler, the

language more eloquent, domestic love more prominent, and patriotic

enthusiasm more emphatic. In fact, the three constant keys of the

action are parental affection, ardent attachment to native land, and

the burning passion for liberty, corresponding with three central

elements of strength in the personality of the actor now drawn to the

part with a hungry instinct.

In preparation for this rôle, Forrest had first the native congruity

of his own soul with it. Then he studied the character in the text of

Knowles with the utmost care, analyzing every speech and situation.

Furthermore, he saturated his imagination with the spirit of the life

and legends of Switzerland, by means of histories, books of travel,

and engravings, till its people and their customs, its torrents,

ravines, pastures, chalets, cloud-capped peaks, and storms, were

distinct and real to him. In the next place, he paid great attention to

his make-up, arraying himself in a garb scrupulously accurate to the

fashion of a Switzer peasant and huntsman.

No actor placed greater stress on a fitting costume than Forrest. He

knew its subtle influences as well as its more obvious effects. The

more vital unity and sensitiveness we have, the more important each

adjunct to our personality becomes. A man who is a sloppy mess of

fragments is not influenced much by anything, and in return does not

much influence anything; but to a man whose body and soul form, as

it were, one vascular piece, the action and reaction between him and

everything with which he is in close relation is of great consequence.

The dress of such a person is another self, corresponding in some sort

with the outer man as his skin does with the inner man.

When Forrest came upon the stage with his bow and quiver, belted

tunic and tight buskins, with free, elastic bearing, and high tread,

deep-breathing breast, resounding voice, his whole shape and moving

moulded to the robust and sinewy manners of the archer living in the

free, open airs between the grass and the snow, he was an embodied

picture of the legendary Swiss mountaineer. At the first sight a

keen sensation was produced in the audience, for it kindled all the

enthusiastic associations fondly bound up with this image in the

American imagination.

It is morning, the sunrise creeping down the flanks of the mountains

and spreading over the lake and valley, in the background Albert

shooting at a mark, as Tell appears in the distance returning from an

early chase. Approaching, he sees the boy, and pauses to watch him

shoot. Poised on a crag, leaping with eager gaze of fondness fixed on

the little marksman, he looks like the statue of a chamois-hunter on

the cliffs of Mont Blanc, carved and set there by some superhuman hand.

Then the magic voice, breathing love blent in freedom, is heard:

"Well aimed, young archer!

There plays the skill will thin the chamois herd,

And bring the lammergeyer from the cloud

To earth; perhaps do greater feats,--perhaps

Make man its quarry, when he dares to tread

Upon his fellow-man. That little arm

May pull a sinewy tyrant from his seat,

And from their chains a prostrate people lift

To liberty. I'd be content to die,

Living to see that day. What, Albert!"

The lad, with a glad cry of "Ah, my father!" flies into his embrace,

while in unison, from pit to gallery, a thousand hearts throb warmly.

One point of very great beauty and power in this tragedy is the

remarkable manner in which the author has combined the impassioned love

of national liberty with the impassioned love of the natural scenery

associated with that liberty. To these numerous descriptions, marked

by the highest declamatory merit, Forrest did ample justice with his

magnificent voice.

Indeed, elocutionary force and felicity were ever a central charm in

his acting. He did not thrust the gift ostentatiously forward for

its own sake, but kept it subordinated to its uses. His first aim in

vocal delivery was always to articulate the thought clearly,--make it

stand out in unmistakable distinctness; his second, to breathe the

true feeling of the words in his tones; his third, by rate, pitch,

inflection, accent, and pause, to give some imaginative suggestion of

the scenery, of the thought, and thus set it in its proper environment.

In the first aim he rarely failed; in the second he generally

succeeded; and he often triumphed in the third. One example, which no

man of sensibility who heard him pronounce it could ever forget, was

this:

"I have sat

In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake,

The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge

The wind came roaring,--I have sat and eyed

The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled

To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,

And think I had no master save his own.

You know the jutting cliff, round which a track

Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow

To such another one, with scanty room

For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there

By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along,

And while gust followed gust more furiously,

As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

And I have thought of other lands, whose storms

Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there,--the thought that mine was free

Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head

And cried in thraldom to that furious wind,

Blow on! This is the land of liberty!"

And the following is another example, still happier in the climax of

its eloquence:

"Scaling yonder peak,

I saw an eagle wheeling near its brow:

O'er the abyss his broad expanded wings

Lay calm and motionless upon the air,

As if he floated there without their aid,

By the sole act of his unlorded will,

That buoyed him proudly up. Instinctively

I bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still

His airy circle, as in the delight

Of measuring the ample range beneath

And round about: absorbed, he heeded not

The death that threatened him. I could not shoot--

'Twas liberty! I turned my bow aside,

And let him soar away."

Old Melctal, the father of Tell's wife, is led in by Albert, blind and

trembling, his eyes having been plucked from their sockets by order of

Gesler. As Tell, horror-struck, listened to the frightful story from

the lips of the old man, the revelation of the feelings it stirred

in him was one of the most genuine and moving pieces of emotional

portraiture ever shown to an audience. It was an unveiled storm of

contending pity, amazement, wrath, tenderness, tears, loathing, and

revenge. Every muscle worked, his soul seemed wrapt and shaken with

thunders and lightnings of passion, which alternately darkened and

illumined his features, and he seemed going mad, until at last he

seized his weapons and darted away in search of the monster whose

presence profaned the earth, crying, as he went, "Father, thou shalt be

revenged, thou shalt be revenged!" The power of this effort is shown

in the fact that more than one critic compared his struggle with his

own feelings under the narrative of Melctal to his subsequent struggle

with the guards of Gesler, when, like a lion amidst a pack of curs, he

hurled them in every direction, and held them at bay till overpowered

by sheer numbers. The mental struggle was quite as visibly defined and

terrible as the physical one.

In this play Forrest presented four successive examples of that proud

assertion of an independent, high-minded man which has been said to be

the real type of his character as a tragedian. These specimens were

differenced from one another with such clean strokes and bold colors

that it was an æsthetic as well as a moral luxury to behold him enact

them. The first was a trenchant, sarcastic scorn of baseness, spoken

when he sees the servile peasants bow to Gesler's cap, and the hireling

soldiery driving them to it:

"They do it, Verner;

They do it! Look! Ne'er call me man again!

Look, look! Have I the outline of that caitiff

Who to the outraged earth doth bend the head

His God did rear for him to heaven? Base pack!

Lay not your loathsome touch upon the thing

God made in his own image. Crouch yourselves;

'Tis your vocation, which you should not call

On free-born men to share with you, who stand

Erect except in presence of their God

Alone."

The second example is the stern stateliness of unshaken heroism with

which he confronts insult and threats of torture and death, when,

chained and baited by the soldiers, Sarnem bids him down on his knees

and beg for mercy. They try to force him to the ground, inciting one

another with cowardly ferocity to strike him, put out his eyes, or

lop off a limb. His bearing and the soul it revealed were such as

corresponded with the descriptive comment wrung from the onlooking

Gesler:

"Can I believe my eyes? He smiles. He grasps

His chains as he would make a weapon of them

To lay his smiter dead. What kind of man

Is this, that looks in thraldom more at large

Than they who lay it on him!

A heart accessible as his to trembling

The rock or marble hath. They more do fear

To inflict than he to suffer. Each one calls

Upon the other to accomplish that

Himself hath not the manhood to begin.

He has brought them to a pause, and there they stand

Like things entranced by some magician's spell,

Wondering that they are masters of their organs

And not their faculties."

The third example is fearless defiance of tyrannical power, when,

bound and helpless, he confronts the cowering Gesler with majestic

superiority. The Austrian governor says, "Ha, beware! think on thy

chains!" Tell replies, with swelling bosom and flashing eyes,--

"Though they were doubled, and did weigh me down

Prostrate to earth, methinks I could rise up

Erect, with nothing but the honest pride

Of telling thee, usurper, to the teeth,

Thou art a monster! Think upon my chains!

Show me the link of them which, could it speak,

Would give its evidence against my word.

Think on my chains! 'They are my vouchers, which

I show to heaven, as my acquittance from

The impious swerving of abetting thee

In mockery of its Lord!' Think on my chains!

How came they on me?"

The fourth example is that of a grand, positive exultation in the moral

beauty and glory of human nature in its undesecrated experiences. In

response to the contemptible threat of the despot that his vengeance

can kill, and that that is enough, Tell raises his face proudly,

stretches out his arm, and says, in rich, strong accents,--

"No: not enough:

It cannot take away the grace of life,--

Its comeliness of look that virtue gives,--

Its port erect with consciousness of truth,--

Its rich attire of honorable deeds,--

Its fair report that's rife on good men's tongues:

It cannot lay its hands on these, no more

Than it can pluck his brightness from the sun,

Or with polluted finger tarnish it."

The capacities of parental and filial affection in tragic pathos

are wrought up by Knowles in the last two acts with consummate and

unrelenting skill. The varied interest and suspense of the dialogue

and action between Tell and Albert are harrowing, as, neither knowing

that the other is in the power of Gesler, they are suddenly brought

together. Instinct teaches them to appear as strangers. The struggle to

suppress their feelings and play their part under the imminent danger

is followed with painful excitement as the plot thickens and the dread

catastrophe seems hurrying. Tell, ordered to instant execution, seeks

to speak a few last words to his son, under the pretext of sending a

farewell message to his Albert by the stranger boy. In a voice whose

condensed and tremulous murmuring betrays all the crucified tenderness

it refuses to express, he says,--

"Thou dost not know me, boy; and well for thee

Thou dost not. I'm the father of a son

About thy age; I dare not tell thee where

To find him, lest he should be found of those

'Twere not so safe for him to meet with. Thou,

I see, wast born, like him, upon the hills:

If thou shouldst 'scape thy present thraldom, he

May chance to cross thee; if he should, I pray thee,

Relate to him what has been passing here,

And say I laid my hand upon thy head,

And said to thee--if he were here, as thou art,

Thus would I bless him: Mayst thou live, my boy,

To see thy country free, or die for her

As I do!"

Here he turns away with a slight convulsive movement mightily held

down, and Sarnem exclaims, "Mark, he weeps!" The whole audience weep

with him, too; as well they may, for the concentration of affecting

circumstances in the scene forms one of the masterpieces of dramatic

art. And Forrest played it in every minute particular with an intensity

of nature and a closeness of truth effective to all, but agonizing to

the sympathetic. His last special stroke of art was the natural yet

cunningly-prepared contrast between the extreme nervous anxiety and

agitation that marked his demeanor through all the preliminary stages

of the fearful trial-shot for life and liberty, and his final calmness.

Until the apple was on the head of his kneeling boy, and he had taken

his position, he was all perturbation and misgiving. Then this spirit

seemed to pass out of him with an irresolute shudder, and instantly

he confirmed himself into an amazing steadiness. Every limb braced as

marble, and as motionless, he stood, like a sculptured archer that

looked life yet neither breathed nor stirred. The arrow flies, the boy

bounds forward unhurt, with the transfixed apple in his hand. Tell

then slays Gesler, and, dilating above the prostrated Austrian banner,

amidst universal exultation both on and off the stage, closes the play

with the shouted words,--

"To arms! and let no sword be sheathed

Until our land, from cliff to lake, is free!

Free as our torrents are that leap our rocks,

Or as our peaks that wear their caps of snow

In very presence of the regal sun!"

DAMON.

The Damon of Forrest perhaps surpassed, in popular effect, all his

other early performances. The romantic story of the devotion of the

ancient Greek pair of friends, as narrated by Valerius Maximus, has

had a diffusion in literature and produced an impression on the

imaginations of men almost without a parallel. This is because it

appeals so penetratingly to a sentiment so deep and universal. Above

the mere materialized instincts of life there is hardly a feeling of

the human heart so profound and vivid as the craving for a genuine,

tender, and inviolable friendship. After all the disappointments

of experience, after all the hardening results of custom, strife,

and fraud, this desire still remains alive, however thrust back and

hidden. Remove the disguises and pretences, even of the aged and

worldly-minded, and it is surprising in the souls of how many of them

the spring of this baffled yet importunate desire will be found running

and murmuring in careful concealment. In the hurry and worry of our

practical age, so crowded with toil, rivalry, and distraction, the

sentiment is less gratified in real life than ever, a fact which in

many cases only makes the ideal still more attractive. Accordingly,

when the sacred old tale of the Pythagorean friends was wrought into a

play by Banim and Shiel, it struck the taste of the public at once. The

play, too, had exceptional rhetorical merit, and was constructed with

a simple plot, marked by a constant movement full of moral force and

pathos.

Forrest had seen the rôle of Damon filled by Cooper with transcendent

dignity and energy, and the remembrance had been burned into his

brain. It was one of the most finished and famous impersonations of

that celebrated actor, who charged it with honest passion and clothed

it with rugged grandeur. The representation by Cooper, though unequal

and careless, was so just in its general outlines to the idea of the

author, that when Forrest first hesitatingly essayed the character, he

had as a disciple of truth, perforce, largely to repeat the example.

But he came to the part with a fresher youth, a more concentrated

nature, a keener ambition, and a more elaborate study; and, original

in many details as well as in the more conscientious working up of the

harmony of the different scenes, it was soon conceded that in the

portrayal as a whole and in the unprecedented excitement it produced

he had eclipsed his distinguished English forerunner on the American

stage. He entered into the spirit and scenery of the subject with so

intelligent and vehement an earnestness that he seemed not to act, but

to be, Damon, speaking the words spontaneously created in his soul on

the spot, not uttering any memorized lesson. It was like a resurrection

of Syracuse, with the despot and his tools plotting the overthrow of

its republican government, and the faithful friends seeking to prevent

the success of the scheme. The spectators forgot that the Sicilian city

had vanished ages since, and Dionysius and Pythias and Procles and

Calanthe all gone to dust. The reality was before them, and its living

shapes moved and spoke to the spell-bound sense.

The Damon of Forrest was in every respect grandly conceived and

grandly embodied. His noble form carried proudly aloft in weighty

ease, clad in Grecian garb, with long robe and sandals, corresponded

with the justice and dignity of his soul. He was in no sense a

sentimentalist or fanatic, but a man with intellect and heart balanced

in conscience,--equally a patriot, a philosopher, and a friend,--his

sentiments set in the great virtues of human nature loyal to the gods,

his convictions and love not mere instincts but embedded in his reason

and his honor. Yet, trained as he had been in the lofty ethics of

Pythagoras, the austere discipline deadened not, but only curbed, the

tremendous elemental passions of his being. Beneath his cultivated

stateliness and playfulness the impetuous volume and energy of his

natural feelings made them, reposing, grand as mountains clad with

verdure, aroused, terrible as volcanoes spouting fire. An inferior

actor would be tempted to weaken or slur everything else in order to

give the higher relief to the great central topic of friendship. It was

the rare excellence of Forrest that he gave as patient an attention

and as sustained a treatment to the gravity and zealous devotion of

the senator, the thoughtful habit of the scholar, the fondness of the

husband and father, as he did to the touching affection of the friend,

in his portraiture of Damon.

He makes his appearance in the street, on his way to the Senate, when

he encounters a crowd of venal officers and soldiers thronging to the

citadel, brandishing their swords and cheering for the despot. He

says, with a musing air first, then quickly passing through indignant

scorn to mournful expostulation,--

"Then Dionysius has o'erswayed it? Well,

It is what I expected: there is now

No public virtue left in Syracuse.

What should be hoped from a degenerate,

Corrupted, and voluptuous populace,

When highly-born and meanly-minded nobles

Would barter freedom for a great man's feast,

And sell their country for a smile? The stream

With a more sure eternal tendency

Seeks not the ocean, than a sensual race

Their own devouring slavery. I am sick

At my inmost heart of everything I see

And hear! O Syracuse, I am at last

Forced to despair of thee! And yet thou art

My land of birth,--thou art my country still;

And, like an unkind mother, thou hast left

The claims of holiest nature in my heart,

And I must sorrow for, not hate thee!"

The soldiery shout,--

"For Dionysius! Ho, for Dionysius!

_Damon._ Silence, obstreperous traitors!

Your throats offend the quiet of the city;

And thou, who standest foremost of these knaves,

Stand back and answer me, a Senator,

What have you done?"

And then he slowly leans towards them with dilating front, and sways

the whole crowd away from him as if by the invisible momentum of some

surcharging magnetism.

"_Procles._ But that I know 'twill gall thee,

Thou poor and talking pedant of the school

Of dull Pythagoras, I'd let thee make

Conjecture from thy senses: But, in hope

'Twill stir your solemn anger, learn from me,

We have ta'en possession of the citadel.

_Damon._ Patience, ye good gods! a moment's patience,

That these too ready hands may not enforce

The desperate precept of my rising heart,--

Thou most contemptible and meanest tool

That ever tyrant used!"

Procles in a rage calls on his soldiers to advance and hew their

upbraider in pieces. At this moment Pythias enters, sees how affairs

stand, and, hastening to the side of his friend, calls out,--

"Back! back! I say. He hath his armor on,--

I am his sword, shield, helm; I but enclose

Myself, and my own heart, and heart's blood, when

I stand before him thus.

_Damon._ False-hearted cravens!

We are but two,--my Pythias, my halved heart!--

My Pythias, and myself! but dare come on,

Ye hirelings of a tyrant! dare advance

A foot, or raise an arm, or bend a brow,

And ye shall learn what two such arms can do

Amongst a thousand of you."

A brief altercation follows, and the mob are appeased and depart,

leaving the two friends alone together. They proceed to unbosom

themselves, fondly communing with each other, alike concerning the

interests of the State and their private relations, especially the

approaching marriage of Pythias with the beautiful Calanthe. The

unstudied ease and loving confidence of the dialogue, in voice and

manner, plainly revealing the history of love that joined their souls,

their cherished luxury of interior trust and surrender to each other,

formed an artistic and most pleasing contrast to the hot and rough

passages which had preceded. And when the fair Calanthe herself breaks

in upon them, and Damon, unbending still more from his senatorial

absorption and philosophic solemnity, changes his affectionate

familiarity with Pythias into a sporting playfulness with her, the

colloquial lightness and tender banter were a delightful bit of skill

and nature, carrying the previous contrast to a still higher pitch.

It was a lifting and lighting of the scene as gracious and sweet as

sunshine smiling on flowers where the tempest had been frowning on

rocks.

Learning that the recreant servants of the State are about to confer

the dictatorship of Syracuse on Dionysius, Damon speeds to the capitol,

to resist, and, if possible, defeat, the purpose. Undaunted by the

studious insolence of his reception, almost single-handed he maintains

a long combat with the conspirators, battling their design step by

step. It was a most exciting scene on all accounts, and was steadily

marked by delicate gradations to a climax of overwhelming power. He

wielded by turns all the weapons of argument, invective, persuasion,

command, and defiance, exhibiting magnificent specimens of impassioned

declamation, towering among the meaner men around him, an illuminated

mould of heroic manhood whereon every god did seem to have set his seal.

Finally, they pass the fatal vote, and cry,--

"All hail, then, Dionysius the king.

_Damon._ Oh, all ye gods, my country! my country!

_Dionysius._ And that we may have leisure to put on

With fitting dignity our garb of power,

We do now, first assuming our own right,

Command from this, that was the senate-house,

Those rash, tumultuous men, who still would tempt

The city's peace with wild vociferation

And vain contentious rivalry. Away!

_Damon._ I stand,

A senator, within the senate-house!

_Dion._ Traitor! and dost thou dare me to my face?

_Damon._ Traitor! to whom? to thee?--O Syracuse,

Is this thy registered doom? To have no meaning

For the proud names of liberty and virtue,

But as some regal braggart sets it down

In his vocabulary? And the sense,

The broad, bright sense that Nature hath assigned them

In her infallible volume, interdicted

Forever from thy knowledge; or if seen,

And known, and put in use, denounced as treasonable,

And treated thus?--No, Dionysius, no!

I am no traitor! But, in mine allegiance

To my lost country, I proclaim thee one!

_Dion._ My guards, there! Ho!

_Damon._ What! hast thou, then, invoked

Thy satellites already?

_Dion._ Seize him!

_Damon._ Death's the best gift to one that never yet

Wished to survive his country. Here are men

Fit for the life a tyrant can bestow!

Let such as these live on."

Forrest was so absolutely possessed by the sentiment of these passages,

that if, instead of standing in the Senate of Syracuse and representing

her little forlorn-hope of patriots, he had been standing in the

capitol of the whole republican world as a representative of collective

humanity, his delivery could not have been more proudly befitting and

competent. Such was the immense contagious flood of inspiration with

which he was loaded, that repeatedly his audiences rose to their feet

as one man and cheered him till the dust rose to the roof and the very

walls seemed to quiver.

Damon is cast into prison and doomed to die. The curtain rises on him

seated at a table, writing a last testament to be given to Pythias.

The solitude, the stillness, the heavy hour, the retrospect of his

life, the separation from all he loves, the nearness of death, combine

to make his meditations profound and sad. The picture of man and fate

which he then drew--so calm and grave and chaste, so relieved against

the other scenes--was an exquisite masterpiece. He lays down his

stylus. In an attitude of deep reflection--the left leg easily extended

and the hand pendent by its side, the right leg drawn up even with the

chair, his right elbow resting on the table, the hand supporting his

slightly-bowed head, the opened eyes level and fixed, with a voice of

manly and mournful music, every tone and accent faultless in its mellow

and pellucid solemnity--he pronounces this soliloquy:

"Existence! what is that? a name for nothing!

It is a cloudy sky chased by the winds,--

Its fickle form no sooner chosen than changed!

It is the whirling of the mountain-flood,

Which, as we look upon it, keeps its shape,

Though what composed that shape, and what composes,

Hath passed--will pass--nay, and is passing on

Even while we think to hold it in our eyes,

And deem it there. Fie! fie! a feverish vision,

A crude and crowded dream, unwilled, unbidden,

By the weak wretch that dreams it."

The effect was comparable to that of suddenly changing the scene from

the clamorous multitude, bustle, and struggle of a noonday square to

the midnight sky, with its eternal stars and moon shining on a lonely

lake, whose serenity not a ripple or a rustling leaf disturbs.

Pythias visits him in his dungeon. The interview is conducted in a

manner so unaffected, so true to the finest feelings of the human

heart, that few and hard indeed were the beholders who could remain

unmoved. On the lamentation of Damon that he is denied the satisfaction

of pressing his wife and child to his bosom before he dies, Pythias

proposes to gain that privilege for him by being his hostage, if the

tyrant will consent. He makes the request.

"_Dionysius._ What wonder is this?

Is he thy brother?

_Damon._ Not in the fashion that the world puts on,

But brother in the heart.

_Dion._ Oh, by the wide world, Damocles,

I did not think the heart of man was moulded

To such a purpose."

Six hours are granted Damon in which to reach his villa on the

mountain-side, four leagues distant, take his farewell, and return,

assured that if he is not at the place of execution at the moment

appointed the axe falls on his substitute.

The meeting with his Hermion and their boy in the garden of his villa,

his resolute adaptation of his manner to the untimely innocent prattle

of the child, the various transitions of tone and topic, the pathos

of the intermittent upbreaking of his concealed struggle, the gradual

unveiling of the awful announcement of his impending destiny, the

determined efforts at firmness in himself and consolation for her,

the clinging and agonized farewell,--all these were managed with a

truthfulness and a distinct setting to be attained by no player without

the utmost patience of study added to the deepest sincerity of nature.

He has lingered to the latest allowable moment. Hurrying out, he calls

to his freedman, Lucullus, "Where is my horse?" and receives the

following reply:

"When I beheld the means of saving you,

I could not hold my hand,--my heart was in it,

And in my heart the hope of giving life

And liberty to Damon--and--

_Damon._ Go on!

I am listening to thee.

_Lucullus._ And in hope to save you

I slew your steed.

_Damon._ Almighty heavens!"

An ordinary actor would have said "Almighty heavens," at once; but

Forrest, seeming taken utterly by surprise, did not speak the words

till he had for some time prepared the way for them by a display of

bewildered astonishment, which revealed the workings of his brain so

clearly that the spectators could scarcely believe that the actor was

acquainted with the plot in advance. The facts of the situation seemed

presenting themselves to his inner gaze in so many pictures,--the

calamity, his broken promise, the disappointment and death of his

friend, the dread dishonor,--and their expressions--wonder, rage,

horror, despair, frenzy--visibly came out first in slow succession,

then in chaotic mixture. At last the gathered tornado explodes in one

burst of headlong wrath. Every rigid muscle swollen, his convulsed face

livid, his dilated eyes emitting sparks, with the crouch and spring of

an infuriated tiger he plunges on the hapless Lucullus and hoists him

sheer in air. Vain are the cries of the unfortunate wretch, idle his

struggles. Articulating with a terrible scream the words,--

"To the eternal river of the dead!

The way is shorter than to Syracuse,--

'Tis only far as yonder yawning gulf,--

I'll throw thee with one swing to Tartarus,

And follow after thee!"--

his enraged master disappears with him in his grasp. The feelings of

the audience, wound to an intolerable pitch, audibly give way in a

long, loosened breath, as they sink into their seats with a huge rustle

all over the house.

Meanwhile, the fatal crisis nears, and Damon, delayed by the loss of

his steed, comes not. The stroke of time on the dial-plate against

the temple dedicated to the Goddess of Fidelity moves unrelentingly

forward. All is ready. The tyrant, his skepticism confirmed, is there,

indignant at the soul that in its fling of proud philosophy had made

him feel so outsoared and humbled. Pythias, agitated between a dreadful

suspicion of his friend and the fear of some unforeseen obstacle, parts

with Calanthe, and prepares for the beheading steel. A vast multitude

on the hills stretch their long, blackening outline in the round of the

blue heavens, and await the event.

"Mute expectation spreads its anxious hush

O'er the wide city, that as silent stands

As its reflection in the quiet sea.

Behold, upon the roof what thousands gaze

Toward the distant road that leads to Syracuse.

An hour ago a noise was heard afar,

Like to the pulses of the restless surge;

But as the time approaches, all grows still

As the wide dead of midnight!

A horse and rider in the distance,

By the gods! They wave their hats, and he returns it!

It is--no--that were too unlike--but there!"

Damon rushes in, looks around, exclaims, exultingly,--

"Ha! he is alive! untouched!"

and falls, with a hysterical laugh, exhausted by the superhuman

exertions he has made to arrive in time. He soon rallies, and, when his

name is pronounced, leaps upon the scaffold beside his friend; and all

the god comes into him as, proudly erecting his form, he answers,--

"I am here upon the scaffold! look at me:

I am standing on my throne; as proud a one

As yon illumined mountain where the sun

Makes his last stand; let him look on me too;

He never did behold a spectacle

More full of natural glory. Death is-- Ha!

All Syracuse starts up upon her hills,

And lifts her hundred thousand hands. She shouts,

Hark, how she shouts! O Dionysius!

When wert thou in thy life hailed with a peal

Of hearts and hands like that one? Shout again!

Again! until the mountains echo you,

And the great sea joins in that mighty voice,

And old Enceladus, the Son of Earth,

Stirs in his mighty caverns. Tell me, slaves,

Where is your tyrant? Let me see him now;

Why stands he hence aloof? Where is your master?

What is become of Dionysius?

I would behold and laugh at him!

_Dionysius._ Behold me!

Go, Damocles, and bid a herald cry

Wide through the city, from the eastern gate

Unto the most remote extremity,

That Dionysius, tyrant as he is,

Gives back to Damon life and freedom."

Like one struggling out of a fearful dream, the phantom mists receding,

horror expiring and brightening into joy, the great actor lifts

himself, relaxes, staggers into the arms of his Pythias, and the

curtain sinks. The people, slowly scattering to their homes, do not

easily or soon forget the mighty agitation they have undergone.

BRUTUS.

The two celebrated characters of early Roman history, Brutus and

Virginius, each the hero of a startling social revolution, as well

as of an appalling domestic tragedy, in which personal affection is

nobly sacrificed to public principle,--these imposing forms, each

enveloped in his grand and solemn legend, stalking vivid and colossal

in the shadows of antique time,--these sublime democratic idols of

old Rome, men of tempestuous passion and iron solidity, whose civic

heroism was mated with private tenderness and crowned with judicial

severity,--like statues of rock clustered with ivy and their heads

wreathed in retributive lightnings,--both these personages in all

their accompaniments were singularly well fitted for the ethical,

passionate, single-minded, and ponderous individuality of Forrest

to impersonate with the highest sincerity and power. He achieved

extraordinary success in them. There was in himself so much of the old

Roman pride, independence, concentrated and tenacious feeling, majestic

and imperious weight, that it was not hard for him to steal the keys of

history, enter the chambers of the past, and reanimate the heroic and

revengeful masks. He did so, to the astonishment and delight of those

who beheld the spectacle.

The play of "Brutus, or the Fall of Tarquin," the best of the dramatic

productions of John Howard Payne, has been greatly admired. Its

title rôle was a favorite one with Kean, Cooper, Macready, Booth,

and Forrest; and they all won laurels in it. The interest of the

plot begins at once, and scarcely flags to the end. The murderous

tyrant, Tarquin, has forced his way to the throne through treason,

poison, and gore, and holds remorseless rule, to the deep though

muffled indignation and horror of the better citizens. His fears of

the discontented patriots have led him to murder their master-spirit,

Marcus Junius, and his eldest son. The younger son, Lucius, escaped,

and affected to have lost his reason, playing the part of a fool, and

meanwhile abiding his time to avenge his family and his country. He

kept his disguise so shrewdly that he was allowed to be much at court,

a harmless butt for the mirth of the tyrant and his fellows.

Forrest kept up the semblance of imbecility, the shambling gait,

the dull eyes and vacant face, the sloppy, irresolute gestures, the

apparent forgetfulness, with the closest truth. He had for years

studied the traits and phases of these poor beings in visits to

lunatic-asylums. But in the depicting of the fool there was some

obvious unfitness of his heavy bearing, noble voice, and native majesty

to the shallow and broken qualities of such a character. It did not

appear quite spontaneous or natural. He clearly had to act it by will

and effort. Yet there was a sort of propriety even in this, as the

part was professedly an assumed and pretended one. But when he cast

off the vile cloud of idiocy and broke forth in his own patrician

person, the effect of the foregone foil was manifest, and the new and

perfect picture stood in luminous relief. When Claudius and Aruns

had been badgering him, and had received some such pointed repartees

as a fool will seem now and then to hit on by chance, as they went

out he followed them with a look of superb contempt, and said, in an

intonation of intense scorn wonderfully effective,--

"Yet, 'tis not that which ruffles me,--the gibes

And scornful mockeries of ill-governed youth,--

Or flouts of dastard sycophants and jesters,--

Reptiles, who lay their bellies on the dust

Before the frown of majesty!"

And the house was always electrified by the sudden transformation with

which then, passing from the words,

"All this

I but expect, nor grudge to bear; the face

I carry, courts it!"

he towered into prouder dimensions, and, as one inspired, delivered

himself in an outbreak of declamatory grandeur:

"Son of Marcus Junius!

When will the tedious gods permit thy soul

To walk abroad in her own majesty,

And throw this visor of thy madness from thee,

To avenge my father's and my brother's murder?

Had this been all, a thousand opportunities

I've had to strike the blow--and my own life

I had not valued at a rush.--But still--

There's something nobler to be done!--My soul,

Enjoy the strong conception! Oh! 'tis glorious

To free a groaning country,--

To see Revenge

Spring like a lion from the den, and tear

These hunters of mankind! Grant but the time,

Grant but the moment, gods! If I am wanting,

May I drag out this idiot-feignéd life

To late old age, and may posterity

Ne'er hear of Junius but as Tarquin's fool!"

The manner in which, in his fictitious rôle, in his interview with

Tullia, the parricidal queen, whose prophetic soul is ominously alive

to every alarming hint, he veered along the perilous edges of his

feigned and his real character, the sinister alternation of jest and

portent, was a passage of exciting interest, sweeping the chords of

the breast from sport to awe with facile and forceful hand. The same

effect was produced in a still higher degree in the interview with his

son Titus, whose patriotism and temper he tested by lifting a little

his false garb of folly and letting some tentative gleams of his true

nature and purposes appear.

"_Brutus._ I'll tell a secret to thee

Worth a whole city's ransom. This it is:

Nay, ponder it and lock it in thy heart:--

There are more fools, my son, in this wise world,

Than the gods ever made.

_ Titus._ Sayest thou? Expound this riddle.

Would the kind gods restore thee to thy reason--

_Brutus._ Then, Titus, then I should be mad with reason.

Had I the sense to know myself a Roman,

This hand should tear this heart from out my ribs,

Ere it should own allegiance to a tyrant.

If, therefore, thou dost love me, pray the gods

To keep me what I am. Where all are slaves,

None but the fool is happy.

_Titus._ We are Romans--

Not slaves--

_Brutus._ Not slaves? Why, what art thou?

_Titus._ Thy son.

Dost thou not know me?

_Brutus._ You abuse my folly.

I know thee not.--Wert thou my son, ye gods,

Thou wouldst tear off this sycophantic robe,

Tuck up thy tunic, trim these curléd locks

To the short warrior-cut, vault on thy steed,

Then, scouring through the city, call to arms,

And shout for liberty!

_Titus._ [_Starts._] Defend me, gods!

_Brutus._ Ha! does it stagger thee?"

The simulation had been dropped so gradually, the unconsciously waxing

earnestness of purpose and self-betrayal were carried up over such

invisible and exquisite steps, that, when the electric climax was

touched, he who confronted Brutus on the stage did not affect to be

more startled than those who gazed on him from before it really were.

Finding his son is in love with the sister of Sextus, and in no

ripe mood for dangerous enterprise, he turns sorrowfully from him,

murmuring,--

"Said I for liberty? I said it not.

My brain is weak, and wanders. You abuse it."

When left alone, he soliloquizes, beginning with sorrow, and passing

in the succeeding parts from sadness to repulsion, then to anxiety,

afterwards to hope, and ending with an air of proud joy.

"I was too sudden. I should have delayed

And watched a surer moment for my purpose.

He must be frighted from his dream of love.

What! shall the son of Junius wed a Tarquin?

As yet I've been no father to my son,--

I could be none; but, through the cloud that wraps me,

I've watched his mind with all a parent's fondness,

And hailed with joy the Junian glory there.

Could I once burst the chains which now enthrall him,

My son would prove the pillar of his country,--

Dear to her freedom as he is to me."

Few things in the history of the stage have been superior in its way to

what Forrest made the opening of the third act in Brutus. It is deep

night in Rome, thunder and lightning, the Capitol in the background,

in front an equestrian statue of Tarquinius Superbus. Brutus enters,

revolving in his breast the now nearly complete scheme for overthrowing

the despot. Appearance, thoughts, words, voice, manner, all in strict

keeping with the time and place, he speaks:

"Slumber forsakes me, and I court the horrors

Which night and tempest swell on every side.

Launch forth thy thunders, Capitolian Jove!

Put fire into the languid souls of men;

Let loose thy ministers of wrath amongst them,

And crush the vile oppressor! Strike him down,

Ye lightnings! Lay his trophies in the dust!

[_Storm increases._

Ha! this is well! flash, ye blue-forkéd fires!

Loud-bursting thunders, roar! and tremble, earth!

[_A violent crash of thunder, and the statue of Tarquin, struck

by a flash, is shattered to pieces._

What! fallen at last, proud idol! struck to earth!

I thank you, gods! I thank you! When you point

Your shafts at human pride, it is not chance,

'Tis wisdom levels the commissioned blow.

But I,--a thing of no account--a slave,--

I to your forkéd lightnings bare my bosom

In vain,--for what's a slave--a dastard slave?

A fool, a Brutus? [_Storm increases._] Hark! the storm rides on!

Strange hopes possess my soul. My thoughts grow wild.

I'll sit awhile and ruminate."

Seating himself on a fragment of the fallen statue, in contemplative

attitude, his great solitary presence, blending with the entire scene,

presented a tableau of the most sombre and romantic beauty.