"I have but recently returned from England, after performing many

nights on those boards where the master-spirits of the stage achieved

their noblest triumphs. You have heard from other sources with what

kindness I was received, and with what bounteous applause my efforts

were rewarded. Throughout my sojourn abroad I experienced only the most

candid and liberal treatment from the public, and the most elegant and

cordial hospitality in private. But I rejoice that the time has come

round which brings me again to the point from which I started; which

places me among those friends whose partial kindness discovered the

first unfoldings of my mind, and watched it with assiduous care through

all the stages of its subsequent development. The applause of foreign

audiences was soothing to my pride, but that which I received at home

had aroused a deeper sentiment. The people of England bestowed their

approbation on the results of long practice and severe study, but my

countrymen gave me theirs in generous anticipation of those results.

"_They_ looked with indulgence on the completed statue; _you_ marked

with interest from day to day the progress of the work till the rough

block, by gradual change, assumed its present form. Let me hope that it

may yet be sculptured to greater symmetry and smoothness, and better

deserve your lavish regard.

"The sounds and sights which greet me here are linked with thrilling

associations. Among the voices which welcome me to-night I distinguish

some which were raised in kind approval of my earliest efforts. Among

the faces which surround this board I trace lineaments deeply stamped

on my memory in that expression of benevolent encouragement with which

they regarded my juvenile attempts, and cheered me onward in the outset

of my career. I look on your features, sir" (said Mr. F., addressing

himself to the Mayor of the city, who occupied a seat by his right),

"and my mind glides over a long interval of time, to a scene I can

never forget. Four lustres are now nearly completed since the event

occurred to which I allude.

"A crowd was gathered one evening in the Tivoli Garden, to behold

the curious varieties of delirium men exhibit on inhaling nitrous

oxide. Several years had then elapsed since the great chemist of

England had made known the singular properties of exhilarating gas;

and strange antics performed under its influence by distinguished

philosophers, poets, and statesmen of Europe were then on record. It

was yet, however, a novelty with us, and the public experiments drew

throngs to witness them. Among those to whom the intoxicating agent

was administered (on the occasion referred to) there chanced to be a

little unfriended boy, who, in the instant ecstasy which the subtle

fluid inspired, threw himself into a tragic attitude and commenced

declaiming a passage from one of Shakspeare's plays. 'What, ho!' he

cried, 'young Richmond, ho! 'tis Richard calls; I hate thee, Harry, for

thy blood of Lancaster.' But the effect of the aerial draught was brief

as it was sudden and irresistible. The boy, awaking as from a dream,

was surprised to find himself the centre of attraction,--'the observed

of all observers.' Abashed at his novel and awkward position, he shrunk

timidly from the glances of the spectators, and would have stolen in

haste away. But a stranger stepped from the crowd, and, taking him

kindly by the hand, pronounced words which thrilled through him with

a spell-like influence. 'This lad,' said he, 'has the germ of tragic

greatness in him. The exhilarating gas has given him no new power. It

has only revealed one which lay dormant in him before. It needs only to

be cherished and cultivated to bring forth goodly fruit.'

"Gentlemen, the present chief magistrate of our city was that

benevolent stranger, and your guest to-night was that unfriended boy.

If the prophecy has been in any degree fulfilled,--if since that time

I have attained some eminence in my profession,--let my full heart

acknowledge that the inspiriting prediction, followed as it was with

repeated acts of delicate and considerate kindness, exercised the

happiest influence on the result. It was a word in season; it was a

kindly greeting calculated to arouse all the energies of my nature and

direct them to a particular aim. Prophecy oftentimes shapes the event

which it seems only to foretell. One shout of friendly confidence at

the beginning of a race may nerve the runner with strength to win the

goal.

"Happy he who, on accomplishing his round, is received with generous

welcome by the same friends that cheered him at the start. Among such

friends I stand. You listened with inspiring praise and augury to the

immature efforts of the boy, and you now honor with this proud token of

your approbation the achievements of the man.

"You nurtured me in the bud and early blossom of my life, and 'labored

to make me full of growing.' If you have succeeded, 'the harvest is

your own.'

"Mr. President and gentlemen, allow me to offer you, in conclusion, as

my sentiment,--

"_The Citizens of Philadelphia_--Alike ready at the starting-post to

cheer genius to exertion, and at the goal to reward it with a chaplet."

The newspaper reporter who described the occasion said,--

"It is not possible to convey by words any idea of the effect produced

by this speech. His delivery was natural, forcible, and unaffected; and

in many passages all who heard him were moved to tears. At the allusion

to Colonel Swift, the Mayor of the city, the whole company rose, and,

by a common impulse, gave six hearty cheers. Mr. Forrest sat down

amidst the most vehement applause."

Several sentiments were read, and excellent speeches made in response.

Morton McMichael ended his eloquent remarks thus:

"Before I sit down, however, allow me to call upon one whose genuine

eloquence will atone for my tedious prattle. For this purpose I shall

presently ask the company to join me in a health to one now near me,

who, though young in years, has already secured to himself a ripe

renown,--one who, in various departments of literature, has shown a

vigorous and searching mind,--one who, in all the circumstances in

which he has been placed, whether by prosperous or adverse fortune, has

so acquitted himself, that in him

'Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, this is a man.'

I allude, sir, to the author of 'Conrad of Naples,' a tragedy which,

though written in the early years of nonage, bears upon it the

unmistakable impress of rich and fruitful soil. Nor is this the only

thing which my friend--for I am proud to call him so--has achieved in

the difficult walks of the tragic drama. His 'Jack Cade' is a fine,

spirited, stirring production, full of noble sentiments, clothed in

striking language; and if it could only be so fortunate as to secure

for the representative of its hero our own Spartacus, its success upon

the stage would be as pre-eminent as its deserts are ample. As an

essayist, too, this gentleman has made himself extensively known by

the energy and brilliance of his style, the justness and solidity of

his ideas, and the comprehensive range of his information. In years

gone by, his contributions to the press of this city were everywhere

recognized by their bold and manly eloquence; and in the gentle

pursuits of the Muses he has exhibited a fervor of thought and a

delicacy of expression seldom surpassed by any of our native poets. But

I see, sir, that my praises are distasteful to him, and I therefore at

once propose

"_Robert T. Conrad_--Distinguished alike by his success as a dramatist,

his skill as a poet, and his rich, ready, and glowing eloquence."

The Hon. R. T. Conrad then addressed the company, as follows:

"To those who are acquainted with the gentleman who has just taken

his seat, no act of generosity or kindness coming from him can be

wholly unexpected. I will not, therefore, plead, in extenuation of

my inability to return a suitable acknowledgment, the surprise which

his flattering reference to me, and the still more flattering manner

in which that reference was received, have excited. I may, however,

regret that the excess of his kindness deprives me of the power of

speaking the gratitude which it inspires,--gratitude which is only

rendered more profound by a consciousness that his praises are partial

and undeserved. The excitement which, when tranquil, fans and kindles

expression, when turbulent, overwhelms and extinguishes it. I feel this

on the present occasion. The compliment is not only beyond my ambition,

but beyond my strength. It comes to me as Jupiter did to the ambitious

beauty of old, consuming while it embraces. I am not, however, so

completely consumed in my blushes but that enough of me is left to say

to the gentleman who has done me this honor, and to the company who

joined in it, that I thank him and them most sincerely.

"Mr. McMichael has alluded to my former connection with the drama. The

memory of friendship alone could have retained or revived a thought

of my humble association, at an earlier period of my life, with the

literature of the stage. To me the recollection of those studies will

ever be grateful. Even the severest and most ascetic student can have

no reason to regret the time spent in the contemplation of the rich

stores of the British drama. He who has dwelt amid its glorious

structures--who has had the wizard spell of its mighty masters thrown

over his spirit--can never recur to it without enjoyment. Years may

pass over him, and the current of life drift him far away from those

pursuits, but, when recalled by an occasion like the present, he will

come back to them with all his former feelings,--

'Feelings long subdued,

Subdued, but cherished long.'

He will find all its haunted paths familiar to him, and the flowers

that bloom around those paths as fresh and as bright as when they first

sprang forth at the call of genius. Its ancient and lofty halls will

ring with the old and well-known voices, and its gorgeous and grotesque

creations pass before him like things of life and substance, rather

than the airy nothings of the imagination. If such be its ordinary

magic, how potent is the spell when the vision becomes half real; when

the leaves of the drama, like the written responses of the ancient

oracles, flutter with supernatural life; when the figures start from

the lifeless canvas and live and move and have their being in the

mighty art of a Forrest! Who that has stepped within the charmed circle

traced by his wand would sell the memory of its delight?

'His is the spell o'er hearts

Which only acting lends,

The youngest of the sister arts,

Where all their beauty blends:

For poetry can ill express

Full many a tone of thought sublime,

And painting, mute and motionless,

Steals but a glance of time.

But by the mighty actor brought,

Illusion's perfect triumphs come,

Verse ceases to be airy thought,

And sculpture to be dumb.'"

Mr. Conrad, with an allusion to the Hon. Joseph R. Chandler, gave this

sentiment:

"_The Press_--The source and safeguard of social order, freedom, and

refinement."

Mr. Chandler said,--

"In the concluding portion of the remarks of the gentleman who

immediately preceded me, there was an allusion to my early acquaintance

with the distinguished guest of the evening. The gentleman was right,

sir. I can boast a long acquaintance with our guest, and an early

appreciation of those talents which have so often delighted us, and

which have led their possessor to his present eminence. I was among

those who witnessed the scene which has been so graphically described

by the gentleman himself, and among those who, having such ample means,

prophesied that success which has been attained; and I now see around

me many who are gratified this evening at the full evidence of their

prophecy's fulfilment.

"For more than twenty years, sir, I have had occasion to mark the

progress of our guest. I hope that the new relations into which that

gentleman has entered will not make offensive the unfortunate extent of

my reminiscence; it includes only a part of the years of my manhood,

while it extends far down into his boyhood. It extends to a time when

the first bud of his professional greatness began to blow; but even

then what struck his admirers as a new development could not have been

new to him,--an earlier love of the profession must have begotten some

consciousness of latent talent,--and when has a love of a pursuit,

and a consciousness of powers to prosecute it, failed to give hopes

of success? Well, sir, step by step has that gentleman ascended the

ladder, until he has reached the topmost round; and now, from the proud

eminence which he has attained, he invites us to look back with him,

and to glory in the means whereby he did ascend. Sir, he may glory in

them; and we, as his friends, may join in the felicitation. Steady and

rapid as has been that ascent, there is none to complain. The hundreds

of his profession whom he has passed in his upward flight have cheered

him on, and rejoiced in his success, as the deservings of talent and

toil. No envious actor repines at his lower station, but all feel that

their profession is honored in the achievements of its most successful

member.

"But, sir, I feel that the object of this delightful festival is not

to reward the brilliant achievements of a performer: proud as we may

be, as Philadelphians, of his success, we have a higher motive; we

feel, and would by these ceremonies express, that our townsman has

successfully trod a path dangerous to all, and that green as is the

chaplet which he has acquired as an actor, its beauty and redolence are

derived from his virtues as a _man_. The credit of high professional

excellence is awarded, and the man admired,--that in the case of our

honored guest it has served to give exercise to the virtues of the

citizen, the friend, and the relative.

"On another, a former occasion, I united with many citizens now here in

a festival to a gentleman of eminence as an actor and of high credit

as a dramatic author. I allude to Mr. Knowles. The hospitalities of

the evening were acknowledged by the recipient, and were made most

gratifying to those who extended them. But how different were they from

those of this occasion! They lacked the interest of early associations,

the sympathy of common citizenship: the fame we celebrated was great,

but it was not _our own_. The occasion then was not like _this_; we

come here not to be hospitable, nor to extend courtesy to a stranger.

We come to express an appreciation of talent, our respects for

faculties nobly but meekly borne, our gratitude for true Americanism

exhibited abroad, and our appreciation of the gentleman at home,--to

say to the world that even as a stranger they may applaud the actor in

proportion to his deservings, because here at home, where he is fully

known, the _man_ is loved.

"Sir, alone and unaided has Forrest gained his present eminence, by

the ascending power of talents and perseverance alone; the press has

found time only to record his conquests of fame, and this festival is

the _spontaneous_ offering of admiring citizens to one of their number,

who, in doing so much for himself, has reflected honor on them.

"The Philadelphia press, however, sir, will ever feel it a duty to find

it a pleasure to encourage talents of a high order, and to promote

their appreciation and reward. I speak the more confidently, as I stand

among those of its directors who are concerned themselves in such a

course, and who feel their responsibility in this respect to society."

Richard Penn Smith responded to a toast with much felicity. He said

"he recalled with pleasure his intercourse with Mr. Forrest, for whom

he wrote his tragedy entitled _Caius Marius_, but regretted that even

the transcendent talents of his friend could not save his hero from

perishing among the ruins of Carthage."

Mr. Smith said that "on such an occasion it would be unpardonable

to overlook one who stood foremost in the ranks of our dramatic

writers,--a gentleman who had distinguished himself by his various

talents as an artist and an author, and whose dramatic works would

ultimately secure him an enviable fame." He referred to Wm. Dunlap, of

New York, and read the following letter:

"NEW YORK, December 11th, 1837.

"GENTLEMEN,--I received, on the evening of the 9th instant, your

polite letter, doing me the honor of requesting my presence at a

public dinner to be given to Edwin Forrest on the 15th instant.

Nothing but the progress of winter, which I see around me, and feel

within, could prevent my testifying in person how highly I appreciate

the invitation of the committee and the gentleman to whom the public

mark of esteem is to be given. Permit me to offer a toast:

"The American Actor, who, both in public and private life, upholds the

honor of his country,--Edwin Forrest.

"WILLIAM DUNLAP."

"Mr. President," said Mr. Smith, "I will offer you a toast, which I

have no doubt will be cordially responded to,--

"_William Dunlap_--The Nestor of the American Drama. May he live to see

the edifice become what his foundation promised!"

The President called upon Mr. Charles Ingersoll, chairman of the

Committee of Invitation, for a sentiment, to which Mr. Ingersoll

responded:

"MR. CHAIRMAN,--I have been desired by the committee to propose the

health of a gentleman who is among us,--a friend of our immediate

guest,--who has left his business in a sister city to comply with their

invitation to give us his presence to-day,--a gentleman well known in

the department of letters, as our guest upon your right is in that of

the drama, as peculiarly and characteristically American. We are met to

congratulate upon his successes a man radically American. The occasion

is, therefore, appropriate to the cultivation of nationality,--a virtue

which, though it is said to have grown into a weed in our political

and individual relations, we have never been accused of fostering

overmuch in literature and the arts; and he who cultivates it there

deserves our signal approbation. Short of that illiberality which

impedes the march of improvement, let us cherish a partiality, an

honest, homely prejudice, for what is our own. To know ourselves is not

the whole circle of wisdom; we must love ourselves too. Who sees an

American audience crowd to an American play and turn from Shakspeare

to call for Metamora and the Gladiator, and does not acknowledge in

this fond prejudice the germ of excellence? Patriotism itself is a

blind preference of our own earth; and shall there be no patriotism in

letters? Take from Walter Scott his local prepossessions,--his Scotch

kings, Scotch hills, Scotchmen, and the round of characters that he

carries with him to all times and all places wherever his scene be

laid,--deprive him, in a word, of his nationality, and what is he?

Cut from his harp his own strings, and where is his music? There is

no virtue without excess; such is human imperfection. Give us, then,

_nationality_, which is but a phase of patriotic feeling; give us

excess of it. Let us love the yet barren hills of our own literature,

and we shall learn to make them wave and smile with harvests. Let our

authors, like the gentleman we are about to drink to, strike their

roots into their native soil and spread themselves to their native sun,

and, like him, they will flourish. I propose

"A health and a hearty welcome to Mr. Leggett, whose pen, pointed

by a genius that is his own, is directed by a heart that is all his

country's."

Mr. Leggett said, that "to be complimented on such an occasion, and by

such an assemblage, with a particular notice, was an honor to which

he knew not how to reply. The courteous hospitality which made him a

partaker with them in their festal ovation to his distinguished friend

was an honor so far beyond his deserts as to call for his warmest

acknowledgments. But 'the exchequer of the poor,' thanks alone,

contained no coin which he dared offer in requital of the obligation

they had conferred.

"It is often lamented" (Mr. L. remarked) "that the actor's art, though

more impressive in its instant effects than painting or sculpture,

stamps no enduring memorial of its excellence, and that its highest

achievements soon fade from recollection, or survive only in its

vague and traditionary report. This complaint did not seem to him

altogether just. We best know how to estimate causes from the effects

they produce. The consequences of actions are their most lasting and

authentic chroniclers. What portrait, or what statue, could have

conveyed to us so exalted a notion of the loveliness of Helen of Troy

as the ten years' war provoked by her fatal charms? What 'storied urn

or animated bust' could have perpetuated the memory of Roscius like the

honors bestowed on him by the Roman Senate, the eulogium of Cicero, and

the tears--more eloquent than words--shed by that immortal orator upon

his grave?

"When I look around me, and behold this capacious hall thronged with

men eminent for station, admired for talent, and valued for various

private worth, and when I reflect on the object which convenes them

here, I cannot admit the peculiar perishableness of the actor's fame, I

cannot admit that he merely 'struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

and then is heard no more.' You have reared a monument to one actor, at

least, gentlemen, which will long commemorate his greatness, and convey

to your children, and your children's children, a lively impression of

the genius and virtues which elicited so proud and enviable a tribute!"

Mr. Leggett returned his sincere thanks for the honor of inscribing

his name on so enduring a record, and said he was proud to have it

associated with the proceedings of that day.

In conclusion, he asked the company to fill their glasses to the

following sentiment:

"_Philadelphia_--The Rome of the new world in this, that she has given

a second Roscius to mankind, while another of her sons bids fair to win

for her Athenian distinction by rivalling the fame of Æschylus."

Passing over the other speeches as of little interest now, it may

be well to state that among the letters of excuse read was one from

Washington Irving, regretting that it was not in his "power to join

in this well-merited tribute to theatrical genius and private worth;"

one from William Cullen Bryant, saying that it would give him "the

greatest pleasure to unite in any testimony to the professional merit

and personal worth of Mr. Forrest;" one from John P. Kennedy, who

"would rejoice in such an opportunity to acknowledge his share of the

indebtedness which the country at large owes to a gentleman whose

fame in his profession has become common property;" and one from the

celebrated player W. E. Burton, enclosing this happy toast: "The

Stage of Life,--although cast into inferior parts at the commencement,

industry and perseverance may eventually place us in the principal

characters. May we be found perfect at the conclusion of the play!"

Songs and music were interspersed among the addresses, the famous

vocalist Henry Russell singing several of his most exquisite ballads

with unrivalled effect; and the occasion, altogether, was one of

unclouded enjoyment in the passage and of lasting satisfaction in the

retrospect.

Forrest now purchased a house in New York, and established his home

there. He took a pew in the church of the Rev. Orville Dewey, the

brilliant Unitarian divine, on whose pulpit ministrations he was for a

series of years a regular attendant whenever he was in the city. The

attraction of this extremely original and eloquent preacher had drawn

together the most intellectual and cultivated congregation in New

York; and his influence, silently and in many an unrecognized channel,

has been diffusing itself ever since. The bold, rational, poetic,

yet profoundly tender and devout style of thought and speech which

characterized the sermons of Dewey had a great charm for Forrest, and

they were never forgotten by him. He always believed in a God whose

will is revealed in the laws of the material universe, and in the

rightful order of human life, and he bowed in reverence at the thought

of this mysterious Being, though often perplexed with doubts as to

particular doctrines, and always a sworn enemy to religious dogmatism.

The next event which interrupted the regular movement of his

professional and private life was the delivery of the oration at the

celebration, in the city of New York, of the sixty-second anniversary

of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States. The

celebration was held under the auspices of the Democratic party. Party

feeling was intense at the time, and to be the orator of the day on

the Fourth of July, in the chief metropolis of the land, was an honor

greatly coveted. The choice of Forrest showed the estimation in which

he was held, while, on the other hand, his personal celebrity and

magnetism lent unusual interest to the occasion. The popular desire

to hear him had been fed and fanned to the highest pitch by the

opposing newspaper comments, called out by the singular incident of

a political party selecting a tragedian as their orator. The services

were held in the old Broadway Tabernacle. Five thousand tickets of

admission had been given out, but the multitude rushed resistlessly

in, regardless of tickets, till the enormous building was stuffed to

suffocation. The oration, in its sentiments, its style, its delivery,

was extraordinarily successful. It was hailed with the most extravagant

admiration and praise. In thought and feeling it was really creditable

to its author, but its fervid rhetorical sentences and popular temper

were so exactly suited to the tastes of those who heard it, that their

estimate of its literary rank and philosophic value was stimulated

to a level that must seem amusing to any sober judge of such things.

The author's own opinion of it was modest enough, as appeared in

the apologetic preface he prefixed to it when published. Yet it

expressed his honest convictions and those of his auditors with so

much picturesque vigor, and those convictions were so generous and so

genuinely American, that the popularity of the oration was no matter of

wonder. It was printed in full in numerous journals, and many thousands

of copies in pamphlet form were distributed. Two or three extracts from

it are appended, to serve as specimens of its quality and indications

of the mind and heart of the author.

"FELLOW-CITIZENS,--We are met this day to celebrate the most august

event which ever constituted an epoch in the political annals of

mankind. The ordinary occasions of public festivals and rejoicings lie

at an infinite depth below that which convenes us here. We meet not in

honor of a victory achieved on the crimson field of war; not to triumph

in the acquisitions of rapine; nor to commemorate the accomplishment

of a vain revolution which but substituted one dynasty of tyrants for

another. No glittering display of military pomp and pride, no empty

pageant of regal grandeur, allures us hither. We come not to daze our

eyes with the lustre of a diadem, placed, with all its attributes of

tremendous power, on the head of a being as weak, as blind, as mortal

as ourselves. We come not to celebrate the birthday of a despot, but

the birthday of a nation; not to bow down in senseless homage before a

throne founded on the prostrate rights of man, but to stand erect in

the conscious dignity of equal freedom and join our voices in the loud

acclaim now swelling from the grateful hearts of fifteen millions of

men in acknowledgment of the glorious charter of liberty our fathers

this day proclaimed to the world.

"How simple, how sublime, is the occasion of our meeting! This vast

assemblage is drawn together to solemnize the anniversary of an event

which appeals not to their senses nor to their passions, but to

their reason; to triumph at a victory, not of might, but of right;

to rejoice in the establishment, not of physical dominion, but of an

abstract proposition. We are met to celebrate the declaration of that

inestimable principle which asserts the political equality of mankind.

We are met in honor of the promulgation of that charter by which we

are recognized as joint sovereigns of an empire of freemen; holding

our sovereignty by a right indeed divine,--the immutable, eternal,

irresistible right of self-evident truth. We are met, fellow-citizens,

to commemorate the laying of the corner-stone of democratic liberty.

"Threescore years and two have now elapsed since our fathers ventured

on the grand experiment of freedom. The nations of the earth heard

with wonder the startling principle they asserted, and watched the

progress of their enterprise with doubt and apprehension. The heart of

the political philanthropist throbbed with anxiety for the result; the

down-trodden victims of oppression scarce dared to lift their eyes in

hope of a successful termination, while they knew that failure would

more strongly rivet their chains; and the despots of the Old World,

from their 'bad eminences,' gloomily looked on, aghast with rage

and terror, and felt that a blow had been struck which loosened the

foundation of their thrones.

"The event illustrates what ample cause there was for the prophetic

tremors which thrilled to the soul of arbitrary power. Time has stamped

the attestation of its signet on the success of the experiment, and

the fabric then erected now stands on the strong basis of established

truth, the mark and model of the world. The vicissitudes of threescore

years, while they have shaken to the centre the artificial foundations

of other governments, have but demonstrated the solidity of the simple

and natural structure of democratic freedom. The lapse of time, while

it dims the light of false systems, has continually augmented the

brightness of that which glows with the inherent and eternal lustre of

reason and justice. New stars, from year to year, emerging with perfect

radiance in the western horizon, have increased the benignant splendor

of that constellation which now shines the political guiding light of

the world.

"How grand in their simplicity are the elementary propositions on

which our edifice of freedom is erected! A few brief, self-evident

axioms furnish the enduring basis of political institutions which

harmoniously accomplish all the legitimate purposes of government to

fifteen millions of people. The natural equality of man; the right of

a majority to govern; their duty so to govern as to preserve inviolate

the sacred obligations of equal justice, with no end in view but the

protection of life, property, and social order, leaving opinion free as

the wind which bloweth where it listeth: these are the plain, eternal

principles on which our fathers reared that temple of true liberty

beneath whose dome their children congregate this day to pour out their

hearts in gratitude for the precious legacy. Yes! on the everlasting

rock of truth the shrine is founded where we worship freedom; and

'When the sweeping storm of time

Has sung its death-dirge o'er the ruined fanes

And broken altars of the mighty fiend

Whose name usurps her honors, and the blood,

Through centuries clotted there, has floated down

The tainted flood of ages,'--

that shrine shall stand, unshaken by the beating surge of change, and

only washed to purer whiteness by the deluge that overwhelms all other

political fabrics.

"To the genius of Bacon the world is indebted for emancipating

philosophy from the subtleties of the schoolmen, and placing her

securely on the firm basis of ascertained elementary truth, thence to

soar the loftiest flights on the unfailing pinions of induction and

analogy. To the genius of Jefferson--to the comprehensive reach and

fervid patriotism of his mind--we owe a more momentous obligation. What

Bacon did for natural science, Jefferson did for political morals, that

important branch of ethics which most directly affects the happiness

of all mankind. He snatched the art of government from the hands that

had enveloped it in sophisms and mysteries that it might be made an

instrument to oppress the many for the advantage of the few. He

stripped it of the jargon by which the human mind had been deluded

into blind veneration for kings as the immediate vicegerents of God

on earth; and proclaimed in words of eloquent truth, which thrilled

conviction to every heart, those eternal self-evident first principles

of justice and reason on which alone the fabric of government should be

reared. He taught those 'truths of power in words immortal' you have

this day heard; words which bear the spirit of great deeds; words which

have sounded the death-dirge of tyranny to the remotest corners of the

earth; which have roused a sense of right, a hatred of oppression, an

intense yearning for democratic liberty, in myriads of myriads of human

hearts; and which, reverberating through time like thunder through the

sky, will,

'in the distance far away,

Wake the slumbering ages.'

"To Jefferson belongs exclusively and forever the high renown of having

framed the glorious charter of American liberty. This was the grandest

experiment ever undertaken in the history of man. But they that

entered upon it were not afraid of new experiments, if founded on the

immutable principles of right and approved by the sober convictions of

reason. There were not wanting then, indeed, as there are not wanting

now, pale counsellors to fear, who would have withheld them from the

course they were pursuing, because it tended in a direction hitherto

untrod. But they were not to be deterred by the shadowy doubts and

timid suggestions of craven spirits, content to be lashed forever round

the same circle of miserable expedients, perpetually trying anew the

exploded shifts which had always proved lamentably inadequate before.

To such men the very name of experiment is a sound of horror. It is a

spell which conjures up gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire. They seem

not to know that all that is valuable in life--that the acquisitions of

learning, the discoveries of science, and the refinements of art--are

the result of experiment. It was experiment that bestowed on Cadmus

those keys of knowledge with which we unlock the treasure-houses of

immortal mind. It was experiment that taught Bacon the futility of

the Grecian philosophy, and led him to that heaven-scaling method of

investigation and analysis on which science has safely climbed to

the proud eminence where now she sits, dispensing her blessings on

mankind. It was experiment that lifted Newton above the clouds and

darkness of this visible diurnal sphere, enabling him to explore the

sublime mechanism of the stars and weigh the planets in their eternal

rounds. It was experiment that nerved the hand of Franklin to snatch

the thunder from the armory of heaven. It was experiment that gave this

hemisphere to the world. It was experiment that gave this continent to

freedom.

"Let us not be afraid, then, to try experiments merely because they

are new, nor lavish upon aged error the veneration due only to truth.

Let us not be afraid to follow reason, however far she may diverge

from the beaten path of opinion. All the inventions which embellish

life, all the discoveries which enlarge the field of human happiness,

are but various results of the bold experimental exercise of that

distinguishing attribute of man. It was the exercise of reason that

taught our sires those simple elements of freedom on which they founded

their stupendous structure of empire. The result is now before mankind,

not in the embryo form of doubtful experiment; not as the mere theory

of visionary statesmen, or the mad project of hot-brained rebels: it

is before them in the beautiful maturity of established fact, attested

by sixty-two years of national experience, and witnessed throughout

its progress by an admiring world! Where does the sun, in all his

compass, shed his beams on a country freer, better, happier than this?

Where does he behold more diffused prosperity, more active industry,

more social harmony, more abiding faith, hope, and charity? Where are

the foundations of private right more stable, or the limits of public

order more inviolately observed? Where does labor go to his toil with

an alerter step, or an erecter brow, effulgent with the heart-reflected

light of conscious independence? Where does agriculture drive his team

a-field with a more cheery spirit, in the certain assurance that the

harvest is his own? Where does commerce launch more boldly her bark

upon the deep, aware that she has to strive but with the tyranny of the

elements, and not with the more appalling tyranny of man?

* * * * *

"The day is past forever when religion could have feared the

consequences of freedom. In what other land do so many heaven-pointing

spires attest the devotional habits of the people? In what other land

is the altar more faithfully served, or its fires kept burning with a

steadier lustre? Yet the temples in which we worship are not founded

on the violated rights of conscience, but erected by willing hands;

the creed we profess is not dictated by arbitrary power, but is the

spontaneous homage of our hearts; and religion, viewing the prodigious

concourse of her voluntary followers, has reason to bless the

auspicious influence of democratic liberty and universal toleration.

She has reason to exclaim, in the divine language of Milton, 'though

all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so

truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting,

to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple! for who

ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her

confuting is the best and surest suppressing.' The soundness of this

glorious text of religious liberty has now been approved to the world

by the incontestable evidence of our national experience, since it is

one of those 'columns of true majesty' on which our political fabric

stands. Let bigotry and intolerance turn their lowering eyes to our

bright example, and learn the happy, thrice happy consequences, both

to politics and religion, from placing an insuperable bar to that

incestuous union, from which, in other lands, such a direful brood of

error's monstrous shapes have sprung.

"It is one of the admirable incidents of democracy, that it tends,

with a constant influence, to equalize the external condition of man.

Perfect equality, indeed, is not within the reach of human effort.

'Order is heaven's first law, and, this confest,

Some are and must be greater than the rest,--

More rich, more wise.'

"Strength must ever have an advantage over weakness; sagacity over

simplicity; wisdom over ignorance. This is according to the ordination

of nature, and no institutions of man can repeal the decree. But

the inequality of society is greater than the inequality of nature;

because it has violated the first principle of justice, which nature

herself has inscribed on the heart,--the equality, not of physical or

intellectual condition, but of moral rights. Let us then hasten to

retrace our steps wherein we have strayed from this golden rule of

democratic government. This only is wanting to complete the measure of

our national felicity.

"There is no room to fear that persuasion to this effect, though urged

with all the power of logic and all the captivating arts of rhetoric,

by lips more eloquent than those which address you now, will lead

too suddenly to change. Great changes in social institutions, even

of acknowledged errors, cannot be instantly accomplished without

endangering those boundaries of private right which ought to be held

inviolate and sacred. Hence it happily arises that the human mind

entertains a strong reluctance to violent transitions, not only where

the end is doubtful, but where it is clear as the light of day and

beautiful as the face of truth; and it is only when the ills of society

amount to tyrannous impositions that this aversion yields to a more

powerful incentive of conduct. Then leaps the sword of revolution from

its scabbard, and a passage to reformation is hewn out through blood.

But how blest is our condition, that such a resort can never be needed!

'Peace on earth, and good will among men,' are the natural fruits of

our political system. The gentle weapon of suffrage is adequate for

all the purposes of freemen. From the armory of opinion we issue forth

in coat of mail more impenetrable than ever cased the limbs of warrior

on the field of sanguinary strife. Our panoply is of surest proof, for

it is supplied by reason. Armed with the ballot, a better implement of

warfare than sword of the 'icebrook's temper,' we fight the sure fight,

relying with steadfast faith on the intelligence and virtue of the

majority to decide the victory on the side of truth. And should error

for awhile carry the field by his stratagems, his opponents, though

defeated, are not destroyed: they rally again to the conflict, animated

with the strong assurance of the ultimate prevalence of right.

'Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;

The eternal years of God are hers;

But error wounded writhes in pain,

And dies among his worshippers.'

"What bounds can the vision of the human mind descry to the spread of

American greatness, if we but firmly adhere to those first principles

of government, which have already enabled us, in the infancy of

national existence, to vie with the proudest of the century-nurtured

states of Europe? The Old World is cankered with the diseases of

political senility and cramped by the long-worn fetters of tyrannous

habit. But the empire of the West is in the bloom and freshness of

being. Its heart is unseared by the prejudices of 'damned custom;' its

intellect unclouded by the sophisms of ages. From its borders, kissed

by the waves of the Atlantic, to

'The continuous woods

Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound

Save his own dashing;'

from the inland oceans of the North, to the sparkling surface of the

tropical sea, rippled by breezes laden with the perfumes of eternal

summer, our vast theatre of national achievement extends. What a course

is here for the grand race of democratic liberty! Within these limits a

hundred millions of fellow-beings may find ample room and verge enough

to spread themselves and grow up to their natural eminence. With a

salubrious clime to invigorate them with health, and a generous soil to

nourish them with food; with the press--that grand embalmer not of the

worthless integuments of mortality, but of the offsprings of immortal

mind--to diffuse its vivifying and ennobling influences over them; with

those admirable results of inventive genius to knit them together, by

which space is deprived of its power to bar the progress of improvement

and dissipate the current of social amity; with a political faith which

acknowledges as its fundamental maxim the golden rule of Christian

ethics, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;' with these

means, and the constantly-increasing dignity of character which results

from independence, what bounds can be set to the growth of American

greatness? A hundred millions of happy people! A hundred millions of

co-sovereigns, recognizing no law but the recorded will of a majority;

no end of law but mutual and equal good; no superior but God alone!"

The keen admiration for Forrest prevalent among the democratic masses

had already led to frequent suggestions of him as a candidate for

political honors. His appointment as orator quickened the scent of

friends and foes in this direction. In the public prints the thought

of his nomination was advocated by some and satirized by others. The

following paragraph gives a glimpse into the life of the time:

"There is talk of sending our tragedian to Washington, to act a real

part on the political stage. By all means. Look at the play-writers

in Parliament,--Sheridan, Bulwer, Shiel, Talfourd! Our friend Knowles

is spoken of for a seat in the Commons. Why not Forrest? Down with

all illiberality, we say, in such matters. Let Forrest have a seat

in Congress. We like variety. And in these dog-days we like a little

frolic and fun, and insist upon a thundering audience for the oration

to begin with, and then we will clear the way for the Congressional

election. But fair and softly: what are we to do with his friend

Leggett? They cannot be separated: they must go together, like two

figs in a jar. If Forrest has a seat in Congress, Leggett must have a

stool near him. He can have a seat like a delegate, you know, from a

Territory, having a voice but no vote. We can manage that. He can go

from Coney Island without opposition, and it is essentially necessary

that he should go. Suppose Forrest should break down in a speech on the

Northeastern boundary, on the currency, on the Western land interests,

or on any other great constitutional or legal question, he has only to

turn round to his friend and say, in that remarkably silver voice of

his, '_York, you are wanted!_'"

Some scurrilous spirits charged that the oration delivered by Forrest

was not his own composition, but was furnished by his friend Leggett.

Leggett immediately published a point-blank denial, and affirmed that

he had nothing whatever to do with it. In a short time the anticipated

move was made; and, after careful consideration, it received the

following reply:

"PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 17th, 1838.

"TO GEORGE SEAMAN, JOHN A. MORRILL AND EDMUND J. "PORTER.

"GENTLEMEN,--The circular letter addressed to me by you as Chairman

and Secretaries of the New York Democratic Republican Nominating

Committee for nominating Representatives to Congress, reached me

just as I was leaving the city, and I embrace the earliest moment of

leisure since my arrival here to write you in reply.

"To the first question proposed by the Nominating Committee, I take

great pleasure in returning an affirmative answer. The complete

separation of the political affairs of the country from the private

interests of trade, and especially from those of corporate banking

institutions, I regard as a consummation greatly to be desired by

every friend of popular government and of the equal rights of man. I

have already, on a recent public occasion, expressed my sentiments on

this subject, in general terms indeed, but with an earnestness which,

in some measure, may have evinced how deeply-seated is my dread of the

selfish and encroaching spirit of traffic, and of the aristocratic

character and tendency of chartered monopolies, wielding, almost

without responsibility, the fearful instrument of associated wealth.

Not only do I approve most cordially the plan of the administration

for an independent treasury, and the separation of Bank and State, but

fervently do I hope that the same democratic principles of legislation

may guide the action of every member of the confederacy until, at no

distant day, the last link shall be sundered which now, in any portion

of this republic, holds the general and equal good of the community in

fatal subserviency to the sordid interests of a few.

"To the first branch of your second question, also, I respond in the

affirmative; and so strong is my desire for the success of those

measures in support of which the Democracy is now contending, that,

although my professional engagements will call me, at the time of the

election, to a distance from the city of New York, I shall not let a

very considerable pecuniary sacrifice deter me from visiting it during

the three days, that my ballot may swell the majority which, I trust,

the Democracy of the metropolis of the Empire State will give on the

side of those contested principles which seem to me to lie at the very

foundation of popular liberty and to be essential to the permanency of

our political fabric.

"But to your last inquiry,--while impressed with a lively sense of

gratitude to those who have deemed my name worthy to be placed among

the number from which you are to select persons to discharge the

important duty of representatives to the national legislature,--I am

constrained to offer you a negative reply.

"It was intimated to me, when I was honored with an invitation to

pronounce an address before the Democracy of New York on the late

Anniversary of our Independence, that my name might possibly be

afterwards put in nomination on the list of candidates for Congress.

While I consented, promptly and cheerfully, to deliver the oration,

I at the same time explicitly disclaimed any ulterior views. The

duties of legislation, I thought, could not be adequately discharged

without more preparatory study and reflection than I had yet found

time to bestow upon the subject, and I felt unwilling to owe to the

misjudging partiality of my fellow-citizens an honor due to the merits

of some worthier man, as sincere in the cause of Democracy as myself,

and more able to do it service. My plans had also been arranged to

pursue my present profession for a few years longer, during which time

I hoped that the sedulous devotion of my leisure to political study

and observation might render me more capable, should I hereafter be

called to any public trust, of filling it with credit to myself and

advantage to the community. These are the views which I expressed in

reply to the committee by whom I was invited to deliver an oration on

the Fourth of July; and by these views my mind continues to be swayed.

I therefore, gratefully acknowledging the partial kindness of that

estimate of my talents and character which placed my name before you,

respectfully decline being a candidate for nomination.

"With much consideration,

"I have the honor to be, etc.,

"EDWIN FORREST."

The "Broker of Bogota" was in many respects the most meritorious of

all the prize-plays elicited by Forrest. It was written by Robert

Montgomery Bird, but was of a wholly different order from his other

tragedies. Brought out first in 1834 with marked success, it had

been suffered to lie in neglect for some time, both because of the

difficulty of finding satisfactory performers for the secondary parts

in it, and because the piece, while especially admired by refined

and cultivated judges, lacked those showy scenes and exciting points

which attract the crowd. But it was ever a particular favorite with

Forrest himself, who always delighted to play it, and always spoke of

it with enthusiasm and with deep regret that it was so much too fine

for his average audiences that he was obliged largely to lay it aside

for noisier and more glaring performances with not one tithe of its

merit. Having taken unwearied pains to perfect himself even to the

very minutest details in the representation of the title-rôle, he now

reproduced this play, and continued occasionally to repeat it, wherever

he felt confident of an appreciative audience, up to his last year upon

the stage. In the series of plays with which the name of Forrest is

identified, this one is of so unique a character that we must try to

give some distinctive idea of it; though it is difficult to do so.

The great passions of patriotism, liberty, ambition, revenge, public

spirit and enterprise, with their imposing accompaniments of conflict

and spectacle, are wholly absent from the piece. And yet it was

written expressly for Forrest, and by one who knew him in his inmost

peculiarities. And, despite the seeming strangeness of the assertion,

he never appeared in a part better fitted to his true being. It is a

purely domestic drama, a drama of individual and family affections and

trials. Its delineation was a dissection of the human heart in its

most common and familiar elements, only carried by circumstances to an

extreme intensity.

Baptista Febro is an old man doing a large business in Bogota as a

banker, conveyancer, money-lender, and legatee. He is widely known

and respected for his ability and his scrupulous integrity; he is

honest, frank, and humble to his employers; nevertheless imperative in

his family, though just and kind. The two pre-eminent passions which

dominate him are his personal honor and his parental affection. His

daughter Leonor is devotedly attached to her father; but his son Ramon

is a dissipated and ungrateful youth, whose vicious ways cause the

old man the keenest anguish. Febro turns his son away and refuses him

support, hoping by the consequent distress to lead him to repentance

and reformation. His heart torn with anxiety and bleeding with wounded

love, he watches for some signal of improvement or some overture for

reconciliation from his prodigal boy; but in vain. Ramon meanwhile, who

is more weak than wicked, is the helpless tool of an abandoned young

noble, Caberero, whom he has taken for a friend. Caberero is a cool,

dashing villain, utterly without conscience or fear, a brilliant and

hardened scoundrel, who fairly illuminates with his lurid deviltry

every scene in which he appears. Febro, learning these facts, sends

for Caberero and has a personal interview with him. He first attempts

to hire Caberero to give up his intimacy with Ramon and leave the

young man in freedom to follow the promptings of his own better nature

and the solicitations of his father. The contrast of the invulnerable

insolence of the rascal, his shameless betrayal of his own unprincipled

character and habits, with the earnest affection and simple sincerity

and honorable concern which agitated the old man, was a moral lesson of

the strongest kind, set in a dramatic picture of the finest art. Then,

finding all efforts at persuasion useless, the scorn and indignation of

the righteous man and the injured father gradually mount in his blood

till they break out in a paralyzing explosion of gesture and speech.

Towering in the grandeur of his own moral passion, and backed by that

dynamic atmosphere, of public opinion which invisibly enspheres the

good man pitted against the scoundrel, the broker makes the noble cower

and flee before the storm of his angry contempt.

Ramon is slowly driven to desperation by his vices and their natural

fruits. Caberero, malignantly resenting the denunciation and disdain of

Febro, resolves to break into his vaults and rob him of his deposits.

With diabolical ingenuity he entangles Ramon in the plot. They succeed,

and arrange matters so that it seems as if the robbery were a pretence

and a fraud on the part of the broker himself. He is brought before the

viceroy, accused, and condemned. Deprived of his property, of his son,

and, above all of his honor, the unhappy old man is almost crushed;

yet his consciousness of virtue sustains him, and his bearing in the

presence of the real culprits and his deceived judges, marked by every

sign and attribute of conscious rectitude as he appeals to God for his

final vindication, is a most impressive revelation of human nature

in a scene of extraordinary trial. Meanwhile, the shame and grief of

Febro are topped by a new calamity. Tidings are brought him that his

daughter has eloped, and that he is left desolate indeed. But now

Juanna, the betrothed of Ramon, who believes Febro incapable of the

dishonor charged on him, meets the young man and denounces him for not

defending his father. He tells her the facts of the case. Amazed at

such baseness, her conscience treads their troth under foot, and she

spurns the hideous criminal, and flies to the viceroy to vindicate

Febro. There she finds the broker searching for his daughter. Her story

is told and verified. The joy and gratitude and noble pride of the

old man at the removal of the stigma from his name made an exquisite

moral climax. Then it is also announced to him that his daughter is

not lost, but is the honorable wife of the son of the viceroy. This

delightful surprise breaks on his previous pleasure like a new morn

risen on mid-noon. But, alas, his hapless and guilty Ramon,--where is

he? What dreadful fate awaits him? At this moment a messenger enters

with the statement that Ramon, in a revulsion of remorse and despair,

had committed suicide by precipitating himself from a cliff. The sudden

reversal of emotion in the already over-tried Febro is too much; it

snaps the last chord. As if struck in the brain with an invisible but

deadly blow, he gazes first wildly, then vacantly, around, stretches

out his hands in a piteous gesture of supplication, staggers, and falls

lifeless on the floor.

To those who thought of Forrest as heaving the most ponderous bar and

fitted only for the rugged characters of the gymnastic school, his

impersonation of the "Broker of Bogota" was a surprise. There were

no sensational adjuncts in it, no roll of drum, gaudy procession,

or drawing of swords,--nothing but the naked, simple drama of real

life in its familiar course. But he never exhibited a more perfect

piece of professional workmanship. His portraiture of the business

dealings between the upright and courteous old broker and his varied

customers,--the torturing struggle of his sense of justice and his

parental affection,--the withering curse in which his pent agony burst

on the sneering villain in whom he saw the spoiler of his boy,--the

heart-rending wail with which he sorrowed over the sinfulness of his

darling, "Would to Heaven he had never been born!"--the alternating

crisis of suspense and fulfilment as the plot proceeds through gloom

and gleam of crime and innocence to the last awful climax, where the

mystery is transferred from time and human judgment through despair

and death into eternity and to the unknown tribunal there,--all were

represented with the almost microscopic fidelity of a pre-Raphaelite

picture. Nothing seemed wanting, nothing seemed superfluous. Every

tone, every glance, every gesture, every step, contributed towards

shaping out the ideal. The performance bore the impress of a study

as close and patient as that given to a household scene in the

masterpieces of the Dutch school of painting. But to appreciate it as

it deserved there was required an audience of psychologists, critically

interested in the study of human nature, and curious as to its modes

of individual manifestation. The general multitude must feel it to be

rather dull and tiresome. It was in this respect like the "La Civile

Morte" of Salvini, which, though perhaps his most absolutely perfect

piece of acting in its minute truth, was yet felt by many to be

tedious,--by the few to be most marvellous in its fascination.

One of the most striking examples of the skill and power of Forrest as

an artist is given in the distinction he always made in his rendering

of old age as seen respectively in Richelieu, in Lear, and in Febro.

How does he translate the wily craft, the pitilessness, the mocking

tenderness, of the first of these? He does it in so just and human

a manner, with so little of that blunt and electrizing power which

he displays in some other parts, that one who had not seen him in

Lear would be disposed to believe this his greatest representation

of age. The broken yet gigantic power of the old Lear in his fearful

malediction of Goneril is overwhelming, and gives a new idea of the

possible force of an aged and almost worn-out man. Lear is savagely

straightforward and honest. In the first scenes he sweeps the

spectators along with him in his passion and his rage. When maddened by

the injuries of his unnatural children, he still is artful and clear.

His very actions are unmistakable indications of his thoughts, and

the last scene of the tragedy deserves to stand alone as a picture of

suffering age in which past energy and passion spasmodically assert

themselves. Let this be contrasted with the half-simulated decadence

of Richelieu's powers. One feels from the very manner of the artist

that this is but partially real,--that a moment of success may kindle

into new life the man prostrated by bodily weakness. It comes, and

for the moment he looms before us, as if recreated by the success

of the intrigue which makes him again the genuine king of France.

Very different from Richelieu and from Lear is the portrait Forrest

gave of Febro. Here we have hale and honorable age, plain, sincere,

outspoken. There is nothing of the jocularly-dissembling craft of the

cardinal,--nothing of the ferocious passion of the discrowned monarch;

but all of the self-respect and candid bearing of an honorable servant,

the deep affection and authority of a father, and the impulsiveness of

a strong, genuine man. It is a more modest histrionic picture, none the

less true because less majestic.

The reader will be pleased to peruse the following genial critique

on Forrest as the "Broker of Bogota" from the pen of an unnamed but

reflective and tasteful writer, who first saw the play in Washington in

1864:

"We are glad that we have seen Forrest in the 'Broker of Bogota.'

His rendering of this conception has given us a nearer and a warmer

view of him. In this impersonation he puts off the armor of sternness

and inflexibility, and lets us into the world of a _heart_ in which

there are green arbors clad with sweet flowers, where lingering

sunlight wanders and happy birds sing. Right glad are we that we have

seen this picture of Forrest, for it has an eloquent breath for our

common humanity. It has given us a glimpse of _his_ nature which long

ago we should have rejoiced to see revealed, but whose richness we

dreamed not was there. What a volume is a man's life! The heart's

story,--always going on, always deepening the great drama of our being

as it progresses to the mortal act,--this story, in a strong inveterate

nature, writes in the public bearing and in all the features that

falsehood as to his sensibilities which the dreadful pen of pride

alone engraves. But we do not complain because the proud man _in the

conflict_ wears this covering of steel. In a mortal struggle with the

world it is often his only safety. Heaven help the weak who falter and

fall among the soft valleys of the heart when there are fastnesses

of strength to scale! We are told of victims fatally poisoned by the

breath of a flower whose fragrance floats at the base of a mountain

where it strikes its roots. That lost one, suffocated by perfume,

and that mountain, emblem of endurance and strength, are fit types

of the thought we would convey. But then we do _not_ love that any

man who towers in influence above his fellows shall go thus to the

grave!--that, like Byron, for example, he shall live in posterity

shamed by a record which is a libel upon the romance of his soul, and

written, too, by his own deathless genius. It is for this reason that

we are glad to have seen Forrest as the 'Broker of Bogota.' Here he

uplifts the veil, tears away the mask, and exhibits the tenderness

which, like a deep vein of gold, is intermixed with the iron in the

mine where his intellect sinks the shaft. Forrest, all of him, his

virtues and his faults, is an American product. He is no common man.

His power has a wider range than is given to that of the mere actor.

This is evident from the fact that all over the nation he elicits the

warmth of the partisan. His friends love him as men love a leader. His

enemies, we think, do not understand him. If apology, therefore, be

needed, thus we have given it for this somewhat personal criticism. We

regard the Broker as Forrest's masterpiece. In it there are vehement

power, flexibility, tenderness, sensibility, and all the light and

shade which belong to our full humanity. The story of the play is the

love of an honest, haughty, avaricious, fond old man for an erring

son, whom he seeks to redeem from dissipation and bad friends. It is

the love of the father for his boy, compared to which his coffers of

gold become as dross in his sight,--always peeping with the eyes of a

dove from the ark of the old man's heart, waiting for the deluge of

evil passions to subside in his child, that the olive-branch may be

wafted to him,--it is this love, sublime in forgiveness, ample for

protection, and which at last breaks his heart, that is so painted

here by the player as to make a dramatic movement of which Shakspeare

might have been the author. And it is this which we have called _the

poem of Forrest's heart_. A man of his intractable mould could not thus

simulate. There is a limit to that sort of power which art cannot pass.

In every detail this picture is so tenderly toned, so livingly brought

from the canvas, that it must be a _real_ revelation."

Another new part which Forrest in 1838 essayed with good success was

that of Claude Melnotte, in the brilliant and popular play of "The Lady

of Lyons," by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Forrest, never having seen the

play performed, created his rôle afresh, and was the first actor who

ever represented it in America. This drama, as is well known to the

theatrical and reading world, is rich in eloquent language and in the

varied movement and surprises of its plot, shifting from the still

life of the peasant class to the pomp and clang of court and camp.

The hero is the son of a poor gardener, who, in his humble garb and

lot, has a soul full of poetry and aspiration. He falls in love with

the proud Pauline Deschapelles, and writes to her impassioned verses,

which she scorns as coming from one so much beneath her in station.

Claude, half maddened, assumes the dress and rank of the Prince of

Como, and wooes and wins and weds her. Then, revealing his true name

and person, he enlists in the army, goes to the wars, fights his way to

an illustrious renown and the baton of a marshal, returns, and wooes

and wins his bride anew. The whole character and the motives of its

situations differ most widely from all the parts in which Forrest had

gained his celebrity as an actor; and his friends shook their heads

with doubt when he proposed to attempt so novel and foreign a part. But

his intelligence and art proved quite competent to the undertaking. The

transformation he underwent, as shown by his picture when costumed for

the character, is a surprising evidence of his true dramatic faculty.

Instead of the weighty tragedian, whose Romanesque stateliness and

volcanic fire filled out the ideals of Virginius, Brutus, Spartacus,

he became a gay and ardent Frenchman, elastic with ambitious hope

and love. The ponderous gave way to the romantic, declamation to

conversational ease, monotone to graceful variety. The wooing breathed

the music of sincerity, the tones of martial pride rang like a trumpet,

and the gorgeous diction of the speeches never had better justice done

to it. A judicious critic of that day said, "We were never before

so astonished as at the real, genuine triumph of Forrest in Claude

Melnotte,--a part we had imagined so utterly unsuited to his genius. He

made many points of the most effective excellence; one, for example,

was in reading over the letter of Bauseant twice, the first time in

a rapid, half-conscious, half-trusting manner, the second time in a

slow, careful, and soliloquizing style. Nothing could be more natural

than this. But we cannot do justice to the acting, as a whole, in any

words at our command. It was in conception thoroughly studied and yet

easy, consistently wrought out, beautiful from beginning to end, from

the tender enveloping of the form of Pauline in his cloak to the calm

and respectful lifting from the table of the marriage settlement.

The critic who can harshly ridicule such a sincere and remarkable

performance must have in his nature something bitterly hostile to the

actor." Yet it must be confessed, however well the art of Forrest

overcame the difficulties of the rôle, it was not one really suited

to the spontaneities of his nature. The satire of his prejudiced

censors stung him more than the average approval gratified him, and

the performance was year by year less frequently repeated, and finally

was dropped. Still, there were in it many passages exemplifying the

high mission of the drama to refresh, to teach, and to uplift those

who submit themselves to its influence, when an eloquent interpreter

with contagious tones breathes glorious sentiments in charming words.

For instance, what a heavenly revelation and longing must be given by

this speech to souls of imaginative tenderness chafing under the grim

realities of care and hate and neglect!

"Nay, dearest, nay, if thou wouldst have me paint

The home to which, could Love fulfil its prayers,

This hand would lead thee, listen!--A deep vale,

Shut out by Alpine hills from the rude world;

Near a clear lake, margined by fruits of gold

And whispering myrtles; glassing softest skies,

As cloudless, save with rare and roseate shadows,

As I would have thy fate!

A palace lifting to eternal summer

Its marble walls, from out a glossy bower

Of coolest foliage musical with birds,

Whose songs should syllable thy name! At noon

We'd sit beneath the arching vines, and wonder

Why Earth could be unhappy, while the heavens

Still left us youth and love! We'd have no friends

That were not lovers; no ambition, save

To excel them all in love; we'd have no books

That were not tales of love,--that we might smile

To think how poorly eloquence of words

Translates the poetry of hearts like ours!

And when night came, amidst the breathless heavens

We'd guess what star should be our home when love

Becomes immortal; while the perfumed light

Stole through the mists of alabaster lamps,

And every air was heavy with the sighs

Of orange-groves, and music from sweet lutes,

And murmurs of low fountains that gush forth

I' the midst of roses!--Dost thou like the picture?"

And how, to any susceptible nature not yet deadened with prosaic

conceit, veneered with supercilious knowingness, such a strain as

this, livingly expressed on the stage, would reveal the superiority

of faith and affection to the grinding strifes of material rivalry,

and open that celestial world of the ideal wherein the pauper may be a

millionaire, the drudge an emperor!

"Pauline, by pride angels have fallen ere thy time: by pride--

That sole alloy of thy most lovely mould--

The evil spirit of a bitter love,

And a revengeful heart, had power upon thee.

From my first years, my soul was filled with thee:

I saw thee midst the flowers the lowly boy

Tended, unmarked by thee,--a spirit of bloom,

And joy, and freshness, as if Spring itself

Were made a living thing, and wore thy shape!

I saw thee, and the passionate heart of man

Entered the breast of the wild-dreaming boy;

And from that hour I grew--what to the last

I shall be--thine adorer! Well,--this love.

Vain, frantic, guilty, if thou wilt, became

A fountain of ambition, and a bright hope;

I thought of tales that by the winter hearth

Old gossips tell,--how maidens sprung from kings

Have stooped from their high sphere; how Love, like Death,

Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook

Beside the sceptre. Thus I made my home

In the soft palace of a fairy Future!

My father died; and I, the peasant-born,

Was my own lord. Then did I seek to rise

Out of the prison of my mean estate,

And, with such jewels as the exploring Mind

Brings from the cares of Knowledge, buy my ransom

From those twin gaolers of the daring heart,--

Low Birth and iron Fortune. Thy bright image,

Glassed in my soul, took all the hues of glory,

And lured me on to those inspiring toils

By which man masters men! For thee I grew

A midnight student o'er the dreams of sages!

For thee I sought to borrow from each Grace,

And every Muse, such attributes as lend

Ideal charms to Love. I thought of thee,

And Passion taught me poesy,--of thee.

And on the painter's canvas grew the life

Of beauty!--Art became the shadow

Of the dear starlight of thy haunting eyes!"

In such examples the speaker behind the footlights becomes a more

thrilling preacher in a more genial pulpit, and teaches, for whoever

will heed, the most precious lessons in our existence.

The tragedy of "Jack Cade, the Bondman of Kent," was written by Robert

T. Conrad, who, in a prefatory note, acknowledges his "indebtedness

to the judgment and taste of Mr. Forrest in its preparation for the

stage," and ascribes "its flattering success at home and abroad to the

eminent genius of that unrivalled tragedian." Conrad took the name of

the despised rebel, cleared it of the odium and calumny with which

four hundred years of fierce prejudice had encrusted it, and presented

the notorious insurrectionary leader not as a vulgar demagogue and a

brutal leveller, but as an avenging patriot, who felt the wrongs of

the down-trodden masses and animated them to assert their rights. In

place of Jack Cade the coarse and contemptible upstart pictured in

Shakspeare, Conrad paints the portrait of Jack Cade the great English

democrat of the fourteenth century. He held that there were good

grounds in historic truth for this view; and, at all events, it was the

only view of the character which his sympathies could embrace and shape

to his purpose of producing a play at once suited to the personality

of Forrest as an actor and constituting an impassioned argument for

democracy. The tragedy is all on fire with democratic conviction and

passion. It breathes throughout the most intense feeling of the wrongs

and claims of the oppressed common people. It is a sort of battle-song

of liberty, written in blood and set to music. If a poetic license, it

was a generous one, thus to attempt to redeem from infamy the leader of

a popular movement against the monstrous kingly, priestly, and baronial

outrages under which the laboring classes had suffered so long, and

attract the admiration of the people to his memory and his cause. Such

was the feeling of Leggett, also, who longed to try his own hand at

a drama on this very theme, but could never quite raise his literary

courage to the point.

The main motive of the tragedy, then, is the exaltation of the

sublimest of mortal aspirations,--the grand idea of popular liberty and

equality--against unjust and cruel prerogative. It is a burning oration

and poem of democracy. It is full of the horrible wrongs of the feudal

system, the dreadful crime and ferocity of the past, but likewise

penetrated and glorified with those thrilling sentiments of justice,

freedom, and humanity which forecast the better ages yet to be. Thus,

while European and retrospective in the revengeful temper that glows

in its situations, it is American and prophetic in the moral and

social coloring which irradiates its plot. And herein is indicated the

secret of its immense popularity. The Jack Cade of Forrest stirred the

great passions in the bosom of the people, swept the chords of their

elementary sympathies with tempestuous and irresistible power. From

the first to the last it secured and maintained a success similar to

that which had previously crowned Metamora and Spartacus. The Lear

of Forrest was the storm, and his Broker of Bogota the rainbow, of

his passion. Othello was his tornado, which, pursuing a level line

of desolation, had on either side an atmosphere of light and love

that illumined its dark wings. Macbeth was his supernatural dream and

entrancement of spasmodic action. Hamlet was his philosophic reverie

and rambling in a charmed circle of the intellect. But Jack Cade was

his incarnate tribuneship of the people, the blazing harangue of a

later Rienzi inflamed by more frightful personal wrongs and inspired

with a more desperate love of liberty. In it he was a sort of dramatic

Demosthenes, rousing the cowardly and slumberous hosts of mankind to

redeem themselves with their own right hands.

The opening of the play brings before us a vivid picture of the

condition of the working-class, and the temper it had engendered; and

at the same time skilfully foreshadows the character of the hero.

"_The hovels of the bond discovered._ JACK STRAW, DICK PEMBROKE, ROGER

SUTTON (_bondmen_), _dressed coarsely, with implements of labor, as if

going to their work_.

_Straw._ Of corn three stinted measures! And that doled

With scourge and curse! Rough fare, even for a bondman.

_Pembroke._ Yet must he feed, from this, his wife and children;

What if they starve? Courtnay cares not for that.

_Sutton._ His music is the lash! He makes him merry

With our miseries. Our lords are hot and harsh,

Yet are they milder than their mongrel minions.

_Straw._ I'd cheerly toil, were Courtnay yoked this day

Unto my plough.

_Pembroke._ He seizes on the havings,

The little way-found comforts of the bond,

Nor vouchsafes e'en a 'Wi' your leave, good man.'

_Sutton._ Man, matron, maid,--alas that it is so!

All are their victims.

_Pembroke._ Would we were not men,

But brutes,--they are used kindlier!

_Straw._ Men are we not.

Brutes only would bear this. Bond have there been

Who brooked it not.

_Pembroke._ Who were they?

_Straw._ Old Cade, one;

Who struck down the Lord Say,--not this base coystrel,

Courtnay, but e'en Lord Say,--because he spurned him.

_Pembroke._ He died for it.

_Straw._ But what of that? 'Tis better

To die than thus to live. His stripling son,--

Young Cade,--remember you Jack Cade?

_Pembroke._ Not I.

Our Sutton must.

_Sutton._ He who, some ten years gone,

Fled from the barony?

_Straw._ The same. Well, he,

A bondman and a boy, stood by, when Say

Wronged the pale widow Cade, by a base jest

Upon the husband he had scourged to death.

What think you did the boy?

_Pembroke._ Rebuked his lordship?

_Straw._ He struck him down, and 'scaped the barony.

He hath ne'er since been heard of. So he won

Both liberty and vengeance.

_Sutton._ A brave boy!

'Twas Friar Lacy taught him this: and he

Says that all men are in God's image made,

And all are equal."

The good democratic priest, Lacy, whose loving care and instructions

had largely moulded the mind of young Cade, says to the poor yeoman,--

"I've told you oft

That man to man is but a brother. All,

Master and slave, spring from the self-same fount;

And why should one drop in the ocean flood

Be better than its brother? No, my masters!

It is a blasphemy to say Heaven formed

The race, a few as men, the rest as reptiles."

The wretched hut of the lonely widow Cade is shown. She soliloquizes,--

"A heavy lot and hopeless!

Stricken with years and sorrow, and bowed down

Beneath the fierce frown of offended power!

The poor have no friends but the poor; the rich--

Heaven's stewards upon earth--rob us of that

They hold in trust for us, and leave us starveling.

They shine above us, like a winter moon,

Lustrous, but freezing."

She sighs for the return of her boy, who, when he fled from his tyrants

to seek a land where his heart might throb without the leave of a

master, had promised that he would come back some day in honor to

avenge her and to redeem his class. Meanwhile, he has become a stalwart

and experienced man. Under the name of Aylmere, he has won distinction

in the armies of Italy, and delved in the lore of the schools, but

never lost sight of his origin and his early hatred of the oppressors

of the poor. He now, disguised, enters the cot of his mother with

his wife, Mariamne, and their child. He is unrecognized. Lacy, with

fatherly pride, tells him of the brave boy missed so long, and proceeds

to describe how he had behaved when Lord Say had insulted his mother:

"The proud lord would have spurned him; but young Cade"--

Here Aylmere, with sudden impulse, springs up, throws off his cloak,

and cries, with an exulting laugh,--

"I struck him to my feet! I've not forgot it!

How kissed his scarlet doublet the mean earth.

Beneath a bondman's blow, and he a lord!

That memory hath made my exile green!

Look up, my mother, Cade hath kept his covenant.

Could you read all my exile's history.

You would not blush for it. And now I've come

To shield and comfort thee."

This affecting scene was made to thrill every beholder to tears. As the

poor widow sank fainting under the shock of surprise and joy, and her

son knelt at her feet, all his own mother used to rise in his heart,

and his acting was no simulation, but the breathing truth itself.

The ruminations of the exiled Cade in Italy, whose altars, unwarmed

for a thousand years, were then lit up with the rekindled fires of

free-born Rome,--how he remembered his pale mother, and burned to

redeem his brethren, the herded and toil-worn bondmen,--this was

described in a speech of amazing eloquence, whose delivery was so

imaginative and natural in its free fervor that the images seemed

visibly presented while the tones palpitated among the pulses of their

hearers:

"One night,

Racked by these memories, methought a voice

Summoned me from my couch. I rose,--went forth.

The sky seemed a dark gulf, where fiery spirits

Sported; for o'er the concave the quick lightning

Quivered, but spoke not. In the breathless gloom,

I sought the Coliseum, for I felt

The spirits of a manlier age were forth;

And there against the mossy wall I leaned,

And thought upon my country. Why was I

Idle, and she in chains? The storm now answered.

It broke as heaven's high masonry were crumbling.

The beetled walls nodded and frowned i' the glare;

And the wide vault, in one unpausing peal,

Throbbed with the angry pulse of Deity!

I felt I could amid the hurly laugh,

And, laughing, do such deeds as fireside fools

Turn pale to think on.

The heavens did speak like brothers to my soul,

And not a peal that leapt along the vault

But had an echo in my heart. Nor spoke

The clouds alone; for o'er the tempest's din

I heard the genius of my country shriek

Amid the ruins, calling on her son,--

On me! I answered her in shouts, and knelt,--

Ev'n there in darkness, mid the falling ruins,

Beneath the echoing thunder-trump,--and swore

To make the bondmen free."

Domestic scenes occur, where the stern revolutionist, burning to avenge

the hoarded injuries of his class, unbends in tender endearments.

These two phases of his character heightened each other as the ivy

sets off the oak or the flower the rock. Both aspects were equally

planted in his nature, and so were equally spontaneous and truthful

in his playing. In one mood he says to Mariamne, with fond murmuring

inflections of voice, the very music of caressing love,--

"Life's better joys spring up thus by the wayside;

And the world calls them trifles, 'Tis not so.

Heaven is not prodigal, nor pours its joys

In unregarded torrents upon man;

They fall, as fall the riches of the clouds

Upon the parched earth, gently, drop by drop.

Nothing is trifling that love consecrates."

New associations ruffling this mood away, the spirit of his fierce

mission sweeps through his soul, and his voice has the sonorous accents

of a clarion:

"I cannot be

The meek and gentle thing that thou wouldst have me.

The wren is happy on its humble spray;

But the fierce eagle revels in the storm.

Terror and tempest darken in his path;

He gambols mid the thunder; mocks the bolt

That flashes by his red, unshrinking eye,

And, sternly-joyful, screams amid the din:

Then shakes the torrent from his vigorous wing,

And soars above the storm, and looks and laughs

Down on its struggling terrors. Safety still

Reward ignoble ease:--be mine the storm.

Oh for the time when I can doff

This skulking masquerade, and rush into

The hottest eddy of the fight, and sport

With peril!"

When they bring him accounts of the sufferings heaped on the poor by

their lords, he rejoices that the day of their deliverance is hastened

thus; for, he philosophizes,

"'Tis better, being slaves, that we should suffer.

Men must be thus, by chains and scourges, roused.

The stealthy wolf will sleep the long days out

In his green fastness, motionless and dull;

But let the hunter's toils entrap and bind him,

He'll gnaw his chained limbs from his reeking frame,

And die in freedom. Left unto their nature,

Men make slaves of themselves; and it is only

When the red hand of force is at their throats

They know what freedom is."

One scene of the play which he made wonderfully exciting was where the

licentious Lord Clifford steals into his cottage and offers violence

to Mariamne. Unexpectedly, as if he sprang up out of the earth just in

time to save his wife, Cade appears. He seemed an avatar of avenging

Providence as, hurling the base lord back, he loomed above him, with

uplifted dagger, his grand physical and moral superiority saying, as

plainly as speech,

"Heaven, not heraldry, makes noble men."

With a fierce laugh he hisses out the words in a staccato of stinging

sarcasm,--

"This is a noble death! The bold Lord Clifford

Stabbed by a peasant, for no braver feat

Than toying with his wife! Is 't not, my lord,

A merry jest?

_Clifford._ Thou wilt not slay me, fellow?

_Aylmere._ Ay, marry will I! And why should I not?

_Clifford._ Thou durst not, carle.

_Aylmere._ Durst not!"

At the urgent solicitation of Mariamne, he spares the recreant noble;

but, before letting him go, he utters this speech in a manner which

appears to melt wonder, musing, scorn, and threatening into one

simultaneous expression:

"Good Heaven! that such a worm, so abject, vile,

Should eat into the root of royalty,

And topple down whole centuries of empire!

I will not crush you, reptile, now: but mark me!

Steel knows no heraldry, and, stoutly urged,

Visits the heart of a peer with no more grace

Than it would pierce a peasant's. Have a care!

The eagle that would seize the poor man's lamb

Must dread the poor man's vengeance; darts there are

Can reach you in your eyrie,--ay, and hands

That will not grieve to hurl them. Get thee gone!"

Left alone with himself, he soliloquizes,--

"And yet I slew him not! But--but--'twill come!

It heaps my shame to heighten my revenge;

And I will feast it fully. Would 'twere here,

Here now! Oh, my arm aches, and every pulse

Frets like a war-horse on the curb, to strike

These bold man-haters down. 'Twill come, 'twill come!

And I will quench this fire in a revenge

Deep as our sufferings, sweeping as their wrongs!"

Another magnificent passage was the reply of Cade to the question

of the insurrectionists, what they should demand if they rose.

He replied,--mien, voice, and words, soul, face, and tongue, all

conspiring to one electric result of eloquence,--

"God's first gift,--the blessed spirit

Which he breathed o'er the earth.--

'Tis that which nerves the weak and stirs the strong;

Which makes the peasant's heart beat quick and high,

When on his hill he meets the uprising sun

Throwing his glad beams o'er the freeman's cot,

And shouts his proud soul forth,--'tis Liberty!

We will demand

All that just nature gave and they have taken:

Freedom for the bond! and justice in the sharing

Of the soil given by Heaven to all; the right

To worship without bribing a base priest

For entrance into heaven; and all that makes

The poor man rich in Liberty and Hope!

Rend we a single link, we are rewarded.

Freedom's a good the smallest share of which

Is worth a life to win. Its feeblest smile

Will break our outer gloom, and cheer us on

To all our birthright. Liberty! its beam

Aslant and far, will lift the slave's wan brow,

And light it up, as the sun lights the dawn."

The meeting of Aylmere and Lord Say in the lonely wood was rendered in

a way that formed a picture of retributive and awful sublimity. Say was

the lord who long years before had caused the elder Cade to be tortured

and murdered. And more recently he had ordered the burning of the widow

Cade's cottage and forced her to perish in the flames. The avenger

confronts this man, but is ignorant of his name and person:

"_Say._ Sirrah! I am a peer!

_Aylmere._ And so

Am I--thy peer, and any man's--ten times

Thy peer, an thou'rt not honest.

_Say._ Insolent!

My fathers were made noble by a king!

_Aylmere._ And mine by a God! The people are God's own

Nobility; and wear their stars not on

Their breasts, but in them!--But go to! I trifle.

_Say._ Slave! I am the treasurer of the realm,--Lord Say!

_Aylmere_ (_with a laugh of passionate triumph_).

Fortune, for this I do forgive thee all!

Heaven hath sent him here for sacrifice.

The years have yielded up that hour so long

And bitterly awaited. Thou must die!

_Say._ Thou wouldst not slay me, fellow!

_Aylmere._ Slay thee! Ay, by this light, as thou wouldst slay

A wolf! Bethink thee; hast not used thy place

To tread the weak and poor to dust; to plant

Shame on each cheek, and sorrow in each heart?

Hast thou not plundered, tortured, hunted down

Thy fellow-men like brutes? Is not the blood

Of white-haired Cade black on thy hand? And doth not

Each wind stir up against thee, fiend! the ashes

Of her whom yesternight you gave the flames?

Slay thee, thou fool! Why, now, what devil is it

That palters with thee, to believe that thou

Canst do such deeds and live!

_Say._ I am unarmed;

'Twere craven thus to strike me at advantage.

_Aylmere_ (_with a scornful laugh and throwing away the dagger_).

Why, so it were! Hence, toy!

But those the tiger hath against thee!--Now

For vengeance, justice for the bondmen!"

Before the glorious insurrection of the toilsmen against their tyrants

is fairly afoot. Cade is entrapped into the power of his foes and

doomed to execution. Heart-sick of the cruelty of the rich and strong,

the unhappiness of the poor and weak, the failure of the generous

aspirants who would fain set things right, he said,--and his voice

had the sound of a consoling psalm swelling and fading along funeral

vaults,--

"So be it! Death! the bondman's last, best friend!

It stays th' uplifted thong, hushes the shriek,

And gives the slave a long, long sleep, unwhipped

By dreams of torture. In the grave there is

No echo for the tyrant's lash;

And the poor bond knows not to shrink, or blush,

Nor wonder Heaven created such a wretch.

He who has learned to die, forgets to serve

Or suffer! Thank kind Heaven, that I can die!"

But by a fortunate turn of affairs he escapes from his prison in season

to head the decisive battle.

"_Lacy._ Thank Heaven! thou'rt free!

_Aylmere_ (_laughs_). Ay! once more free! within my grasp a sword.

And round me freemen! Free! as is the storm

About your hills; the surge upon your shore!

Free as the sunbeams on the chainless air;

Or as the stream that leaps the precipice,

And, in eternal thunder, shouts to Heaven,

That it is free, and will be free forever!

_Straw._ Now for revenge! Full long we've fed on wrong:

Give us revenge!

_Aylmere._ For you and for myself!

England from all her hills cries out for vengeance!

The serf, who tills her soil, but tastes not of

Her fruit, the slave that in her dungeon groans,

The yeoman plundered, and the maiden wronged,

Echo the call, in shrieks! The angry waves

Repeat the sound in thunder; and the heavens,

From their blue vaults, roll back a people's cry

For liberty and vengeance!"

The peasants are victorious, and bring in a rabble of nobles and

priests as prisoners. They now have the sinister luxury of turning the

tables on their masters. This was done with a sarcasm whose relish

seemed to smack to the very bones and marrow.

"_Lord._ You will not dare to hold us?

_Aylmere._ Heaven forefend!

Hold a lord captive! Awful sacrilege!

Oh, no! We'll wait on you with trembling reverence!

Ay, veil our brows before you,--kneel to serve you!

What! hold a lord!

_Archbishop._ He mocks us.

_Aylmere._ Save your lordships!

Pembroke, take hence and strip these popinjays,

These moths that live for lust and slaughter! strip them,

Garb their trim forms and perfumed limbs in russet.

And drive them to the field! We'll teach you, lords,

To till the glebe you've nurtured with our blood;

Your brows to damp with honorable dew,

And your fair hands with wholesome toil to harden.

_Lord._ Thou wilt not use us thus?

_Aylmere._ And wherefore not?

_Lord._ Heaven gave us rank, and freed that rank from labor.

_Aylmere._ Go to! thou speak'st not truth! Would Heaven, thou fool,

Wrest nature from her throne, and tread in dust

Millions of noble hearts, that worms like thee

Might riot in their filthy joys untroubled?

Heaven were not Heaven were such as ye its chosen."

The triumphant insurgents compel from the king the promise of a

charter declaring the bondmen free. But, at the height of his success

and glory, Cade is stabbed by a nobleman whom he has condemned to be

executed for his insufferable crimes. As he lies in a dying state,

a cry is heard without, declaring the proclamation of the charter.

Mowbray rushes in, bearing it unrolled, and displaying the royal seal.

Cade starts up with a wild burst of joy, seizes the charter, kisses

it, clasps it to his bosom, sinks to the floor with one slow, expiring

sigh,--and the curtain falls on the dead Liberator of the Bondmen of

England.

It is a terrible play, full of the ravage of fearful passions, but it

is also full of that truth and that justice which are attributes of

God, and work their retributive results in hurricanes of hatred and

battle, as well as sow their blessings in milder forms. The chronic

political and social experience of mankind has always been terrible;

and the drama, to be true to its full function, must sometimes teach

terrible lessons terribly. The implacable animosity of Cade, his

vendetta-hunt for revenge, his frenzied curse on the murderous noble

who had mixed the blood and gray hairs of his mother with the ashes

of her cottage, his gloating satiation of his vengeance at last,

are not beautiful, but may be edifying. Provoked by such frightful

wrongs as he had known, and enlarged by connection with a whole race

similarly treated for ages, they appeal to the deepest instinct that

sleeps in the crude blood of human nature,--the wild tooth-for-tooth

and eye-for-eye justice of equivalent reprisals taken nakedly man to

man. This indomitable basis of barbaric manhood, with all its dread

traditions of even-handed retribution, was powerful in Forrest. He

believed in it as a natural revelation of the divine justice, and he

delighted in a part on the stage in which he could make its ominous

signals blaze against those who could wrong the poor or trample on

the weak; for thus he glorified the democrat he was by nature through

the democrat he displayed in his art. It is obvious that such a

performance must be extremely offensive to several classes of persons,

and give rise to expressions of censure and disgust. And here is a

key to considerable of the vindictive and contemptuous criticism

levelled against Forrest. But all such criticism is incompetent and

unfair, because springing from personal tastes and moods, and not from

standard principles. Unquestionably, those types of man representing

the moral ideals which tend to woo towards us the better future they

prophesy, are more lovely and benignant than the types representing

the real products and makers of history in the past, with all their

merits and faults. But judgment must not be pronounced on the dramatic

impersonation of a character from negative considerations of its

æsthetic or ethical inferiority to other forms of character. It is

to be rightly judged from its truth and power in its own kind and

range; for that is all that the player professes to exhibit. And,

furthermore, this is to be said in behalf of the moral influence of

a character represented on the stage whose energies spurn hypocrisy

and mean compromises, whose passions flame straight to their marks

without cowardice or disguise,--that such a character is far more

noble and wholesome than any of those common types of men who have no

originality of nature, no spontaneous power, but are made up of timid

imitations and a conventional worship of custom and appearance. One is

often tempted to say, Better the free impulses of that stronger and

franker time when the passions of men broke out through their muscles

in deeds of genuine love, righteous wrath, and lurid crime, than the

pale, envious, and sneaking vices that thrive under a civilization of

money, law, and luxury. Better express a hostile feeling through its

legitimate channels than secrete it to rankle in the soul. This was

the thought of Forrest; and there is, no doubt, some truth in it. But

it is to be said, on the other side, that the cultivated suppression

of antipathies weakens them, and it is by this method chiefly that the

world moves in its slow progress from the barbarisms of revenge to the

refinements of forgiveness.

It remains, in conclusion, also to be said, that whatever exceptions

the religious moralist or the fastidious critic may take to Cade, as

delineated by the author and as incarnated by the actor, he was never

the assassin, but always the judge,--his vengeance never the blow

of caprice, but always of Nemesis. Nor did he ever play the selfish

demagogue. His heart was pure, his hands were clean, his soul was

magnanimous, and his tongue was eloquent:

"I seek not power:

I would not, like the seeled dove, soar on high

To sink clod-like again to earth. I know

No glory, save the godlike joy of making

The bondmen free. When we are free, Jack Cade

Will back unto his hills, and proudly smile

Down on the spangled meanness of the court,

Claiming a title higher than their highest,--

An honest freeman!"

So far from being a vulgar agitator, catering to the prejudices of the

mob, he strives to restrain them from every extravagance, teaching them

their duty in golden words:

"Liberty gives nor light nor heat itself;

It but permits us to be good and happy.

It is to man what space is to the orbs,

The medium where he may revolve and shine,

Or, darkened by his vices, fall forever!"

Certainly such a dramatic rôle has ample moral justification in what it

is from all fault-finding based on what it is not. The writer and the

player might join hands and say, in the language of their own hero,--

"We cannot fail!

The right is with us, God is with the right,

And victory with God."

The performance was no mere strutting piece of empty histrionics, but

the carefully-studied and conscientious condensation into three hours

of a whole vigorous and effective life, devoted in a spirit of profound

justice to the avenging of wrongs and the disinterested service of the

needy. And in a world where the lives of most men are absorbed in the

gratification of pecuniary greed, sensual desire, or social vanity,

such a representation must be ennobling in its legitimate influence. If

in any instance its exhibition fed class-hatred or personal ferocity,

the blame lay with the spectator, not with the player any more than

it is a fault in the sunshine that it makes vinegar sourer. The true

moral result of the artistic portrayal of condign punishment is not to

cultivate the spirit of vengeance, but to dissuade from that primary

infliction of wrong which breeds punishment.

Leggett died in 1838, just as he had received an appointment to

Guatemala, a late and reluctant tribute from the triumphant political

party of which he was one of the noblest ornaments. He had been too

true to the principles of democracy to be popular with the partisan

leaders. They feared and disliked him for his incorruptible integrity

and his uncompromising devotion to impartial humanity and justice.

He perished before he was forty years old, in the midst of his

chivalrous warfare against slavery, a sacrifice to his heroic toils

and the over-generous fire of his enthusiasm. He had felt, as Forrest

said in his Fourth of July Oration, "If in any respect the great

experiment which America has been trying before the world has failed

to accomplish the true end of government,--the greatest good of the

greatest number,--it is only where she herself has proved recreant

to the fundamental article of her creed." Accordingly, reckless of

his selfish interests, he toiled to reform his party and bring its

practice up to its theory. His stern earnestness made enemies and held

him back from patronage. Forrest found in him a congenial spirit, and

loved him better than a brother. He furnished him first and last in his

two literary enterprises, the "Critic" and the "Plaindealer," about

fifteen thousand dollars, all of which was lost. After this, when the

unfortunate struggler was in extreme pecuniary and mental distress, the

two friends one evening were supping together in a private compartment

in a restaurant. The gloom, despondency, and haggard air of Leggett

alarmed his friend. "Has anything dreadful happened? What is the

meaning of this?" said Forrest. "Ah, my good friend," answered Leggett,

"it means that I am in absolute despair, and I am going to end the

miserable conflict now and here." He snatched the carving-knife from

the table and was on the point of thrusting it into his heart, when

Forrest seized his arm, exclaiming, "Good God, Leggett, be reasonable,

be calm! This is not just to your family or to your friends." "But,"

replied the unhappy man, "I am overwhelmed with debts: in another

week I shall have no roof over my head; and I see no prospect of

better days." The actor was deeply moved, and his voice faltered a

little. "Come, come," he said, "I have abundance, and am piling up

more. Why should you not share in it? I will relieve you of your worst

embarrassments with cash; and I have a nice house at New Rochelle, just

vacated by its tenant. I will give it to you freely, gladly. You are

still a young man; you have great talents and reputation; and there

is glorious work for you in the world yet. Come, cheer up, my good

fellow." And he took his friend by the arm, and did not leave him until

he received from him at his own door a hearty "God bless you, my dear

friend, and good-night!"

Forrest kept his word to the amount of about six thousand dollars more.

It was an act of impulsive love and aid to a noble man who deserved

it, and to whom the giver felt greatly indebted for his ever-faithful

friendship and sound counsels and the inspiring example of his

character. It was a secret which he never betrayed to the world at all.

It is now told for the first time by the biographer, to whom it was

reluctantly narrated in the course of those confidential communications

which reserved nothing.

Reputations fade out so fast, and the worthiest are forgotten so soon,

in our hurrying land and day, that the average reader can hardly be

supposed to know much, if anything, of this earliest and best friend

of Forrest. His quality of manhood is to be seen in the tribute of his

political and literary associate, William Cullen Bryant:

"The earth may ring from shore to shore

With echoes of a glorious name,

But he whose loss our hearts deplore

Has left behind him more than fame.

"For when the death-frost came to lie

Upon that warm and mighty heart,

And quench that bold and friendly eye,

His spirit did not all depart.

"The words of fire that from his pen

Were flung upon the lucid page

Still move, still shake the hearts of men,

Amid a cold and coward age.

"His love of truth, too warm, too strong,

For hope or fear to chain or chill,

His hate of tyranny and wrong,

Burn in the breasts he kindled still."

And his moral portrait is still more firmly drawn in prose in this

extract from the memorial of him by John G. Whittier: "William Leggett!

Let our right hand forget its cunning when that name shall fail to

awaken generous emotions and aspirations for a higher and worthier

manhood. True man and true democrat; faithful always to liberty,

following wherever she led, whether the storm beat in his face or

on his back; unhesitatingly counting her enemies his own; poor, yet

incorruptible; dependent upon party favor as a party editor, yet

risking all in condemnation of that party when in the wrong; a man of

the people, yet never stooping to flatter the people's prejudices; he

is the politician of all others whom we would hold up to the admiration

and imitation of the young men of our country. What Fletcher of Saltoun

is to Scotland, and the brave spirits of the old Commonwealth time are

to England, should Leggett be to America."

Forrest sorrowed deeply and long over the death of this brave man

and devoted friend. He never forgot him, nor ceased, in unbent and

affectionate hours, to recall his memory, with pleasing incidents of

their intercourse in those earlier days which wore romantic hues when

old age had stolen on the retrospective survivor.

A good example now occurs of those numerous bitter and cruel newspaper

attacks on Forrest, elicited by his great professional success, his

prominence before the public, and his brusque individuality. A paper,

fitly called "The Subterranean,"--edited by a brawling politician named

Mike Walsh,--whose motto was "Independent in everything, neutral in

nothing," published an article, a column in length, the substance of

which was as follows:

"William Leggett.--His Widow.--Disgraceful Conduct of Ned

Forrest.--Ingratitude of the Democracy.

"Leggett, like ourselves, battled boldly against all the power and

corruption of the Democratic party, and untiringly strove to achieve a

radical reform in its abuses. The purity of his principles proved fatal

to him. He was hunted and baited while living, the same as we have been

since his death, by every paltry and polluted scoundrel whose grasping

avarice is likely to be affected by the elevation of the destitute and

forlorn portion of their fellow-men.

"If battling for the oppressed and degraded portion of the human family

is to subject a man, while living, to want, misery, ingratitude, and

persecution, and to embitter his dying moments with the knowledge

that when dead his family will be left destitute in a selfish

world,--receiving the sneers of his enemies and the neglect of his

friends,--you will find but few possessed of sufficient courage to

tread so thorny, cheerless, and disheartening a path.

"We know not how to characterize the conduct of Ned Forrest in this

matter. Leggett found him in an obscurity from which he never could

have emerged by any effort of his own. With a magnanimous generosity

peculiar to men of great minds, he tendered the use of his intellect

and purse. Forrest gladly accepted it; and to that aid is he chiefly

indebted for the immense fortune which he has subsequently acquired.

Mrs. Leggett called on him the other day, and with a cold, heartless,

hell-born ingratitude, which we would have scarcely expected from the

most irredeemable hunker in existence, he treated her as though she

were the greatest stranger on earth,--refusing the common civility due

even to a stranger."

The purpose of this outrageous libel was a political one. It was

designed to break down the popularity of the favorite actor with the

New York Democracy, who were then again talking of bringing him into

official life. Walsh wished to make him unavailable as a candidate, so

as to keep the way open for another. In accordance with the programme,

means were taken to stir up indignation and excitement to mobocratic

pitch. It was noised abroad that there would be a riot. The theatre,

for the first time in years when he played, was but half full, and

with very few ladies. But Mrs. Forrest, with Mrs. Leggett at her side,

and a few other lady friends, were in a front box. When the player

came forward as the curtain rose, there was dead silence. Instead of

beginning the performance, he addressed the audience:

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--Allow me to say a few words to you in

vindication of myself from a slanderous attack which has been made

upon me by an obscene paper called 'The Subterranean,' and repeated

by the 'Herald,' the characteristics of which print I will not shock

your feelings by naming. To those who know me personally, I trust it is

unnecessary for me to repel such foul aspersions, but to those who do

not know me, I beg leave to submit the following very short letter:

"'NEW YORK, October 30th, 1843.

"'MY DEAR FRIEND,--I have seen with surprise and astonishment in the

'New York Herald' of to-day an article which purports to be an extract

from a certain print published in this city, and said to be edited

by a Mr. Walsh; and I have no hesitation in declaring every charge

contained therein, so far as regards yourself, to be entirely false.

Yours,

"'ELMIRA LEGGETT.'

"Ladies and Gentlemen,--I am sorry to be obliged to intrude upon you

even for these few minutes, but, however small my pretensions may be as

an actor, you must allow me to say that I value my character as a man

and a citizen far higher than I should all the fame ever acquired by

all the actors that ever lived, from the days of Roscius down to our

own."

At the conclusion of this pithy speech the audience rose and applauded

with enthusiasm, amidst which Forrest retired for a few seconds, and

then re-appeared as the Cardinal Richelieu.

The "Herald" of the next morning said:

"He evidently suffered from considerable nervous excitement; but that

passed away gradually, and in the closing scenes he was great,--worthy

of himself,--worthy of the warmest applause of the most judicious of

his audience. Had it not been for the timely publication in yesterday's

'Herald,' we would have had materials for a much more exciting

paragraph. A formidable band of rowdies had been organized; a riot

would undoubtedly have taken place had not the information given by us

led to the publication of Mrs. Leggett's letter in the 'Evening Post,'

and to judicious proceedings on the part of two worthy citizens who are

engaged in collecting a subscription for her benefit.

"It was an interesting scene:--the living vindicating his conduct to

the dead, whose arm while in life had so well sustained him, and in the

presence of _that_ witness."

Another instance of that personal abuse, of that annoying public

interference with private affairs, from which eminent artists,

particularly of the dramatic profession, suffer so much, was given

in connection with the proposition for a theatrical benefit for the

poor in Philadelphia. Forrest met this impertinence with a spirit of

resolute independence and common sense so characteristic that it is

worth while to relate the circumstances. In our country, subserviency

to public opinion is so common, a cowardly conformity to what fashion

commands or one's neighbors expect is so much the rule, that vigorous

assertions of individuality are wholesome, and every resolute rejection

on good grounds of the dictation of meddlers is exemplary. With all

his democracy, Forrest was ever a man quite competent to this style.

When the aforesaid benefit had been for some time officiously urged,

and Forrest did not see fit to volunteer his services, a great many

articles were printed reflecting on him for his backwardness, and

virtually demanding that he should come forward. He took advantage of

his great popularity, and risked it in so doing, to rebuke this kind of

procedure and to assert for himself and his professional associates the

right to dispose of their time and earnings as they themselves should

choose. This letter speaks for itself:

"DEAR SIR,--Your letter has just been received, in which you are

signified as the organ of several philanthropic gentlemen of this

city, desirous of obtaining my sentiments in relation to the

much-talked-of 'Benefit for the Poor.'

"You, sir, in common with my fellow-citizens with whom I have the

honor to be personally acquainted, will do me the justice to think

that I am not altogether void of 'tear-falling pity,' or that my

sympathies are entirely shut against the sufferings of the poor. So

far from this, sir, I am disposed to do all in my power to alleviate

their distresses, and will most cheerfully give two hundred dollars

(my price for one night's performance), or five hundred, nay, one

thousand, if _any one_ of your numerous anonymous correspondents, who

display so much anxiety for the relief of the poor, will 'go and do

likewise.' An act like this will argue a greater sincerity to serve

their fellow-creatures than the officious disposal of the time and

exertions of others (which costs _them_ nothing), or their boasted

philanthropy through the medium of the public press.

"From the numerous applications made to me to perform for charities

in almost every city that I visit, in my own defence I have found

it necessary to make a rule which prevents the exertion of my

_professional_ services in behalf of any charity, excepting that of

the Theatrical Fund for the relief of decayed or indigent actors. The

necessity of making such a rule will at once be obvious to you. For

if I performed for one and denied another, I must give offence; and

if I answered all the demands of this nature made upon me, my time

and energies must be thrown away upon others, to the total neglect

of myself and those who have the most immediate claims upon me. The

actor's profession 'is the means whereby he lives;' and who shall

dictate to him the disposal of his hard-earned gains, any more than to

the mechanic, the merchant, or the advocate?

"I thank you, sir, for the opportunity which you have afforded me of

vindicating myself in regard to this matter, and of making known my

reasons for declining to perform on the occasion referred to.

"Very respectfully,

"Your ob't servant,

"ROBERT MORRIS, Esq. "EDWIN FORREST."

The editor of the paper in which the letter was published added, "Now

let us see whether the benevolent souls who have been egging him on to

the execution of their purposes will show a generosity like his own!"