Travelling over the country amidst all kinds of people and scenes, as

he did in his avocation, Forrest naturally had many adventures. Two or

three of these may be narrated as having intrinsic interest or throwing

light on his character. He was once on board a Mississippi steamer when

a passenger, whose name and destination were unknown, was attacked by

the cholera in its most violent form. He was a dark, stalwart man, who

had been promenading the deck, showily dressed, a pistol projecting

from his left breast-pocket, a bowie-knife dangling under his right

arm. The unknown man felt that he was doomed, and had only just time

and strength to say that he had some money on his person, before

sinking back dead in the presence of the horror-struck throng. The

captain took from around the waist of the unfortunate man a quilted

belt, a foot in width, in which were packed thirteen thousand dollars

in gold eagles. As there was no known claimant for the money, it was

agreed that it should be given to a hospital in New Orleans. The boat

was anchored, and they hurriedly wrapped the body in a long roll of

canvas and placed it in a rude box, and went on shore to bury it. It

was a still, starlight night in August; and as the company landed on

their sombre errand, the wide waters of the river gleamed between its

dark shores. A continuous wood of gigantic cotton-wood trees stretched

from the bank, their trunks and boughs clasped by great vines, which

looked, among the fantastic shadows flung by the pitch-pine torches,

like so many serpents crawling in every direction. Digging a trench,

they lowered the box into it, with no other service than the muttered

words, "In the name of God we commit this body to the ground," threw

the earth over it, and returned and proceeded on their way. The

experience was a most impressive and dramatic one, the circumstances of

the scene combining to color and frame it into a vivid natural cartoon.

The following anecdote was published many years ago in the "Sunday

Courier," under his own signature, by Charles T. Heiner, of Baltimore,

and the narrative is known to be strictly authentic. It is given here

in his words, abbreviated:

"After a long absence, I found myself sailing up the Mississippi

River, bound for home. One morning, as I left my state-room, I saw

the passengers gathered on the forward deck. Inquiring the cause, I

was told that a man had just died who had left, without protection,

two children, a boy of seven years and a girl of five. The wife of

the man, I was also told, had recently died, and the children were

now orphans, and friendless and destitute. My informant had scarcely

ceased speaking, when I observed a gentleman of herculean mould and

dignified air, who possessed great personal beauty, pass by where I was

sitting, having on his arm the little daughter of the deceased, who

was sobbing bitterly, her little face nestled close to his breast. The

boy, who was also sobbing, the stranger led by the hand, and, while his

lips quivered and tears stood in his eyes, he was soothing the little

mourners with words of hope and kindness, his full, rich voice being

modulated to the tender tones of a woman. Much moved by the scene, I

followed them and a large number of passengers into the cabin, where I

found the two orphans standing in the centre of the group, their arms

around each other's necks, mingling their tears and sobs.

"'Come, come, be a little man,' said the stranger to the boy; 'don't

cry. I will take care of you,--I will be your father.' And he drew the

little girl to him and wiped the tears from her eyes, regardless that

his own were also overflowing, while the members of the group around

showed no less feeling than he.

"One of the number called the assembly to order by nominating a

chairman, a Mr. Jones, a planter, whose estate was about thirty miles

farther up the river. He accepted the office, and said that, with the

assent of the company, he would take charge of the orphans and rear and

educate them. This proposition was well received by all the passengers

except the stranger, who, during these proceedings, had been sitting

apart in conversation with the little waifs that the act of God had

cast upon the stream of charity. Hastily loosening the arms of the

little girl from about his neck, he stepped forward and addressed the

group.

"'I have been forestalled,' said he, 'by the gentleman who has made

the proposal to which you have just listened. He has children,--I have

none. I will take one of these children, and here pledge my honor to

rear it with the same tenderness that I would exercise if it were my

own. Let me divide with your chairman these gifts of Providence, and I

will give him the privilege of electing which to take.'

"The silence which followed these remarks was broken by the voice of

the little boy, who was old enough to comprehend the nature of what

was passing, and who had been an eager listener to the words of the

stranger, and whose hand he now seized in both his own. 'Oh, don't take

me from my sister!' said he. 'When father died, he told me I must never

leave her. Let us both go with you; she loves me very much, and father

said that in a little while I should be strong enough to work for her.

Don't take her away from me!' And the little fellow's voice trembled,

and he looked imploringly into the stranger's face, who was melted to

tears by this appeal.

"'You shall not be separated, my little hero,' replied the stranger,

'but shall remain together.' Then, turning to the group, he said,--

"'I will relinquish my claim to your chairman; but it must be on

two conditions. The first is, that he shall draw on me annually for

one-half of all the expenses which may be incurred in the rearing and

educating of these orphans; and here is the first instalment of one

hundred dollars.'

"'I cheerfully assent to that,' replied Mr. Jones. 'What is the other?'

"'That if you should die, or circumstances should prevent your

continuing their protector, they shall be sent to me.'

"'I also agree to that.'

"'Take them, then, and may God bless them and you!' said the stranger,

as he kissed the weeping orphans, who, in that brief space of time,

with the quick instincts of children, had learned how much he was their

friend.

"The bell rang, planks were taken in, and, ten minutes after the scene

I have described, the steamer was once again puffing on her course,

leaving the little ones and their new friend standing on the bank of

the river waving us their sorrowful adieu.

"'Who is that gentleman?' said I to one of the passengers, whom I had

drawn apart.

"'Why, don't you know him? That is FORREST, the tragedian!'"

A letter written by Mrs. Forrest to her youngest sister-in-law,

Eleanora, while absent with Edwin on one of his distant theatrical

engagements, may find a fitting place here, for the interest of its

domestic allusions and of its description of the scenery on their

journey:

"BUFFALO, August 29th, 1843.

"MY DEAR ELEANORA,--According to the promise made in Philadelphia,

I will endeavor to give you some account of our travels in the Far

West. From New York we went first to Detroit, where Edwin was engaged

to perform for six nights; but the business was so good that he was

induced to remain eleven.

"On leaving Detroit, we took the railroad to Jackson, the capital

of Michigan, and then proceeded by stage to a village called Battle

Creek, in all a journey of about one hundred and thirty miles. There

we remained overnight. After this we abandoned the public conveyances

so long as we travelled in Michigan,--the routes taken by the stages

being generally through the most uninteresting portions of the

country, and the additional expense of a private conveyance being

small, and the additional comfort great. Leaving Battle Creek, our

road lay through one of the most beautiful portions of the State. For

nearly twenty miles we rode through magnificent forests of huge old

oaks, unencumbered by any undergrowth, and surrounded on all sides

by wild flowers of every form and hue, roses, lilies, and the vivid

scarlet lobelia everywhere growing up in the richest luxuriance.

Occasionally we proceeded for a mile or two along the banks of the

Kalamazoo River, a most picturesque stream, but so shallow that it

may be easily forded almost anywhere. Sometimes we came to a natural

meadow hundreds of acres in extent, on which apparently no tree or

shrub has ever grown. These meadows are universally surrounded by high

banks and immense trees, the growth of ages, which leads one naturally

to suppose that they may have been the beds of lakes, of which there

are a great number in this part of the country. These meadows are of

infinite advantage to the farmer, yielding him fine crops of hay and

saving him the labor of at least one generation, which would otherwise

be employed in clearing away the trees. We spent some portion of a

day in the village of Kalamazoo in walking about the place in search

of Edwin's lots, which eventually we found. As the railroad will be

completed to this place next year, these lots will in all probability

be worth something. At Kalamazoo we remained one night, and started

the next morning for Prairie Ronde. Here we saw one of the wonders of

the western country, a magnificent prairie, fifteen miles across, the

greater portion of it in a high state of cultivation, the soil very

fine, and the farms in a flourishing condition, with a neat little

village in the centre. Those prairies, however, which are wholly

uncultivated present a much finer prospect to the traveller, being an

immense sea of wild flowers, stretching as far as the eye can reach,

without a tree or a shrub to interrupt the view. We remained one night

at a village on White Pigeon Prairie, about thirty miles from the last

one I named, and the next day proceeded to Niles. Our road, during

the greater portion of the morning, was through the woods, and by

the side of the St. Joseph River. The scenery is very beautiful. On

entering the village of Niles, Goodman, who was standing at the door

of his store, immediately recognized Edwin and stopped the carriage.

He insisted on our going to his house, which Edwin at first refused,

but Goodman said he had been expecting us all the week, and seemed

so anxious about the matter that Edwin finally consented to go. I am

sure you will be glad to hear that Edwin settled all his business with

Goodman, and is satisfied that he has acted honestly. We remained

there two days and a half, and he and Mrs. Goodman made us very

comfortable. They have a neat little cottage, and two acres of land

adjoining it, and apparently every comfort which they can require.

On leaving Niles, we went to St. Joseph, and there took the boat to

Chicago, a very pretty town finely situated on Lake Michigan. After

remaining here a day, we took a steamboat for the Upper Lakes, and in

two days reached Mackinaw, a most beautiful little island, where there

is an annual meeting of most of the Indian tribes, who gather there to

receive their pay from the Government. We at first purposed remaining

a few days there; but finding that there were no accommodations for

us, and that the boat would remain long enough to allow of our seeing

all that we wished, we walked on shore, saw a sufficient number of

Indians to satisfy all reasonable curiosity, and in a condition which

tends to destroy the romantic ideas we are apt to form of them. We

returned to our boat, which, after stopping at several places,

brought us in three days more to Buffalo. I must not omit to tell

you that on Sunday we had a sermon from an Episcopal minister, and,

there being no time the same day for any other, on Monday we had a

long discourse from a Mormon preacher; but, my paper being so nearly

full, I must not attempt to describe him. Edwin is going to play ten

or twelve nights here, and then we go to New York. I think this trip

has been of service to him; and he is of the same opinion. He is now

in excellent health. I have but little room left to make the many

inquiries I would wish concerning you and all in Tenth Street. I hope

your dear mother is fast recovering the use of her arm, and that her

health in other respects is good. We should like much to hear how she

is, and should be very glad to receive a few lines from you. I trust

that you and your sisters are all well, and that you escaped the

influenza. Edwin desires his love to mother, Henrietta, Caroline, and

yourself. In this I beg most heartily to join, and remain ever,

"Yours, affectionately,

"CATHARINE FORREST."

Forrest, after playing in Nashville in 1842 or 1843, visited Jackson

at the Hermitage, in Tennessee, where the venerable ex-President was

passing in peaceful retirement the last days of his stormy life.

Jackson, who was himself one of the greatest actors who ever appeared

off the stage, had often seen him act, knew him well, and not only made

him welcome, but insisted on his staying with him as his guest. Forrest

did so, and extremely enjoyed the intercourse with the celebrated man

for whom he had always cherished the greatest political and personal

admiration. It was in the height of the agitation about the annexation

of Texas to the United States. While there, Forrest broached this

topic. In an instant the stooped and faltering sage was all alive,

for he felt a passionate interest in the subject. In a few minutes,

warming with his own action, he rose to his feet, seized a map in his

left hand, and entered vehemently into the whole argument in behalf

of the project on political, commercial, and social grounds. As his

eyes glanced from point to point on the map, they glowed like two gray

balls of fire. His right hand followed the direction of his eyes, and

the pitch of his voice obeyed the inflections of his hand. His cheeks

flushed, his white hair flew back like the mane of an aged lion, his

head rose on his lifted and dilated neck, the motions of his limbs

and torse were made straight from their joints, and he inveighed with

the mien of an angry prophet. Forrest was actually startled by the

spectacle of so sudden a change from drooping decrepitude to sublime

power. He never forgot it as the best unintentional lesson he had ever

received in dramatic expression. He afterwards bore in mind this proof

of the electric capacity of feeble old age to be suddenly charged and

emit lightnings and thunders, when he modelled the great explosions of

his Richelieu.

Year on year now passed by with the fortunes of the player still

wearing an aspect nearly all smiles. Though liberal, he was prudent,

and the investments of his large income were always marked by shrewd

foresight. His strength was enormous, his health and spirits for the

most part were unvarying, his popularity was unabated, caps tossed for

him in the theatre and eyes turned after him in the street, his home

was blessed with love and peace, and his mother and sisters gave him

the pleasure of seeing their steady happiness in the honorable repose

and comfort he had provided for them. Well might he be an agreeable and

cheerful man, genial with his friends, delighting in his profession,

proud of his country and his countrymen, unpoisoned and undepressed as

yet by misjudgment and abuse. So things were with him when, in 1845,

attracted by a handsome managerial offer, moved by the desire of his

wife to revisit her early home, and encouraged by the recollection of

his flattering success before, with a strong hope of enhancing it in

repetition, he resolved to cross the sea once more, and, in a selection

of his favorite characters, present himself anew on the British Stage.

There was at this time one ominous element working in him which had

been the cause of considerable irritation to him already, and which

was to be unexpectedly aggravated in the experience now immediately

before him. In his twenty years of professional life with its waxing

celebrity he had encountered so many jealousies and slanders, so

much envy, meanness, and treachery,--in his intimacy with artists,

politicians, and other ambitious men his sharp discernment had seen so

much base plotting and backbiting, so much pushing of the unworthy into

prominence by dishonorable methods, and so much sacrificing of the

meritorious and modest by falsehoods and shameless tricks of superior

address,--that his early estimate of the average of human nature had

been lowered and some degree of distrust and reserve developed. The

change was not conspicuous, but it had begun, and it foreboded further

evil. He had an open, truthful nature, especially characterized by love

of justice and detestation of all double-faced or underhanded dealings.

He was also a man of a deep and sensitive pride. Finding himself

assailed continually with incompetent and acrimonious criticism, and

in some cases pursued with malignant libels, he was naturally nettled

and angered. With a man of his warm and tenacious temper the experience

was a dangerous one, which tended to feed itself and to grow by what it

fed on. Had he been gifted with that saintly spirit which bears wrong

and insult with meek or magnanimous forgiveness, he would have escaped

a world of strife and suffering. But in regard to injuries he was an

Indian rather than a saint. Accordingly, the interested opposition and

coarse abuse he met put him on probation for misanthropy. Fortunately,

his reason and sympathy were too strong to yield to the temptation.

But in his later career we shall see what was originally his generous

outward struggle with adversity and the social conditions of success

partially changed into a bitter inward conflict with men.

CHAPTER XIII.

SECOND PROFESSIONAL TOUR IN GREAT BRITAIN, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.--THE

MACREADY CONTROVERSY AND RIOT.

Few persons have any adequate idea of the prevalence, the force, the

subtile windings of envy and jealousy among men, especially among those

classes into whose life the principle of rivalry directly enters. The

more patiently and profoundly any one studies the workings of these

passions in his own soul, the larger will be his estimate of the part

they play in society. And then, if his experience be such as to admit

him to the secrets behind the scenes of social life, revealing to him

the selfish collusions, plots, bribes, and wire-pullings concealed

beneath the conventional appearances of openness and fair-play, his

allowance for the operation of sinister forms of self-love will receive

another important enlargement. No other class is so keenly beset by

these malign suspicions and grudges, these base motives to depreciate

and supplant one another, as those who are competitors for public

admiration and applause. There are obvious reasons for this fact, and

the fact itself is notorious and unquestionable. The annals of the

stage in all its departments, tragic, comic, operatic, teem and reek

with the animosities and cabals of those who have seemed to dislike

one another in even proportion as they were favorites of the public.

Forrest, with all his faults, was remarkably free from this mean and

odious vice of professional envy. He never sought by hidden means or

dishonorable arts of any kind either to gain laurels for himself or

to tarnish or tear off the laurels of others. He was always ready to

applaud merit in another, and always rejoiced generously to have his

fellow-actors generously praised when they deserved it. When on the

stage, he did not strive to monopolize everything, and add greatness

and lustre to his own part by belittling and darkening the parts

of others. He was not that kind of man. He had too strong a sense

of justice, too much pride and too much sympathy, to be capable of

such action. The form his self-love took when excited in hostility

was an angry resentment of injustice. The injustice might be fancied

sometimes, but it was that which he identified with the offender,

and hated accordingly. And his wrath manifested itself not in secret

or overt measures of injury, not in a silent malignity circulating

poisonously in the heart and brain, but in frank and passionate

expression on the spot, in hot gestures, flashes of face, and strokes

of voice. He vented his indignation extravagantly, like Boythorn, but

elaborated no methods of doing harm, and was incapable, in his haughty

self-respect, of purchasing a critic or consciously slandering a rival.

Garrick had such a prurient vanity, so morbid a dread of censure and

love of praise, that he not only persuaded hostile critics not to

attack him and friendly ones to write him up, but also freely used

his own skilful pen for the same purpose. He wrote anonymous feeble

condemnations of his own acting, and then replied to them anonymously

with convincing force, thus inflaming the public interest. Voltaire

is well known to have done the same thing. But these were both men of

vanity, not of pride. Vanity hates rivals, and is monopolizing and

revengeful, and a mother of all meannesses. Pride furiously resents

attacks on itself, but does not spontaneously attack others. It asks

but freedom and a fair field. Deny these, and it grows dangerous. When

any one assailed or undertook to lower Daniel Webster, he was met

with the most imperious repulse and transcendent scorn. The kindling

wrath of the haughty giant was terrible. But the mere supposition that

he could ever have stooped to offer a bribe to any one, or to curry

favor of any one, is absurd. Forrest was a man of the same mould. The

anger of such natures at any meddlesome attempt to disparage them has

this moral ground, namely, it is their aroused instinct of spiritual

self-preservation. The man of vulgar inferiority, in his coarse and

complacent stolidity, cares little for the estimates others put on

him. But the man conscious of a great superiority--a Webster or a

Forrest--is keenly alive to whatever threatens it. His sphere of mental

life enormously surpasses his sphere of physical life. The elemental

rhythm of his being, which marks the key-note of his constitution

and destiny, has a more massive and sensitive swing in him than in

average persons, and his feelings are intensely quick to drive back

every hostile or demeaning valuation ideally shrivelling and lowering

his rank. The consciousness of such a man is so vital and intelligent

that it intuitively reports to him every sneer, derogatory judgment,

or insulting look, as something intended to compress and hamper his

being of its full volume and freedom of function. Thus Forrest could

not meekly submit to be undervalued or snubbed; but he had no natural

impulse to undervalue or snub others, or to imagine that they stood in

his way and must be thrust aside.

The distinguished English actor, William Charles Macready, with whom

circumstances brought the American into a professional rivalry which

deepened into bitter enmity, was a man in every respect of a very

different type. All his life he had an extreme distaste and a moral

aversion to his profession; yet, by dint of incessant intellectual

and mechanical drill, he placed himself for a term of years at its

head in Great Britain. He was of vanity and irritability and egotistic

exactingness all compact, insanely sensitive to neglect and censure,

greedily avid of notice and admiration. He seemed scarcely to live

in the direct goals of life for their own sakes, but to be absorbed

in their secondary reflections in his own self-consciousness and in

his imaginations of the opinions of other people concerning him and

his affairs. A man of a morbidly introspective habit, a discontented

observer, a spiritual dyspeptic, he coveted social preferment and

shrank from the plebeian crowd,--

"And 'twas known

He sickened at all triumphs not his own."

This severe estimate is unwillingly recorded, but it is amply

justified by his own memoirs of himself, posthumously published under

the editorship of his literary executor. His diary so abounds in

confessions and instances of bad temper, vanity, arrogance, angry

jealousy, and rankling envy, that it serves as a pillory in which

he exhibits himself as a candidate for contempt. In an article on

"Macready's Reminiscences," the "Quarterly Review" (English) says,

"Actors have an evil reputation for egotism and jealousy. No one ever

lay more heavily under this imputation than Mr. Macready while on the

stage. We have heard the greatest comedian of his time say of him,

'Macready never could see any merit in any actor in his own line until

he was either dead or off the stage.' The indictment was sweeping, but

this book almost bears it out. In his own words, the echo of applause,

unless given to himself, fills him 'with envious and vindictive

feelings.' He abhors and despises his own profession. While still on

the stage he says, 'It is an unhappy life. We start at every shadow

of an actor, living in constant dread of being ousted from popularity

by some new favorite.' After leaving the stage he says, 'I can now

look my fellow-men, whatever their station, in the face and assert my

equality.' And these things he says in the face of the fact that he

owed all his consequence to his success as an actor."

Macready had played a successful series of engagements in the United

States in 1843. He was well received, much praised, and carried home a

handsome sum, though the profit was mostly his own, since the managers

generally made little, and many of them actually lost by him. He

was not popular with the multitude, but was favored by the selecter

portion of the public. His enjoyment, too, of the eulogies written on

his acting was a good deal dashed by the censure and detraction in

which some of the writers for the press indulged. His social success,

however, was unalloyed. He and Forrest up to this time were on good

terms, terms of genuine kindness, though any strong friendship was

out of the question between natures so incompatible. Forrest had

honorably refused urgent invitations from several managers of theatres

in different cities to play for them at the time Macready was acting

in rival houses. The two or three weeks of his engagement in New York

Macready spent in the house of Forrest, who received a very cordial

letter of thanks from Mrs. Macready, in London, in acknowledgment of

his generous attentions and hospitality to her absent husband.

There were at that time many Englishmen connected with the leading

newspapers in this country. They naturally felt that the cause

of Macready was their own, and expatiated on the beauties of his

performances, not a little to the disparagement of the American player.

On the other hand, the national feeling of other writers affirmed the

greater merits of their own tragedian. By natural affinity the English

party drew to themselves the dilettante portion of the upper stratum of

society, the so-called fashionable and aristocratic, while the general

mass of the people were the hearty admirers of Forrest. The cold and

measured style of the foreigner, his rigid mannerism and studied

artificiality, were frequently spoken of in unfavorable contrast with

the free enthusiasm, the breathing sincerity and impassioned power, of

the native player. Forrest was called a rough jewel of the first water,

who scorned to heighten his apparent value by false accompaniments;

Macready a paste gem, polished and set off with every counterfeit gleam

art could lend. The fire of the one was said to command honest throbs

and tears; the icy glitter of the other, the dainty clappings of kid

gloves. Such expressions plainly betray the spirit that was working.

These comparisons--though there were enough of an opposite character,

painting the Englishman as a king, Forrest as a boor--greatly irked and

nettled Macready. And it was known that he went back to England with a

good deal of soreness on this point.

When Forrest made his first appearance in London, at Covent Garden

Theatre, a few months after the return of Macready from his American

trip, the latter, as well as all his compeers, Charles Kemble,

Charles Kean, and Vandenhoff, was without any London engagement. This

circumstance of itself was calculated to quicken jealousy towards an

intruding foreigner who threatened to attract much attention. However,

as it is known that Forrest had nothing to do with the depreciating

notices of Macready written in America, it is to be supposed that none

of the English tragedians had any hand whatever in the scurrilous

critiques of Forrest written in their country, or in the attempt

made to break him down and drive him from the London stage. But such

conspicuous personages always have in their train, among the meaner fry

of dramatic critics and their hangers-on, plenty of henchmen who are

eager to do anything in the fancied service of their lords, even to

the discredit and against the will of those whose cause they affect to

sustain.

On the evening of the 17th of February, 1845, as Forrest appeared in

the character of Othello, he was saluted with a shower of hisses,

proceeding from three solid bodies of claqueurs, packed in three

different parts of the house. So often as the legitimate audience

attempted any expression of approval, it was overpowered by these

organized emissaries. Beyond any doubt it was a systematic plan

arranged in advance under the stimulus of national prejudice and

personal interest, whoever its responsible authors were or were not.

Forrest, though profoundly annoyed, gave no open recognition whatever

of the outrage, but went steadily on with his performance to the end.

The next evening, when he played Macbeth, the disturbances were more

determined than before; but the large majority of the crowded assembly

upheld the actor by their applause, and again he gave no heed to the

interruptions and insults. The force of the conspiracy was broken, and

gave no further overt signal, and the engagement was played through

triumphantly. But Forrest left Covent Garden with a bitter and angry

mind. He ruminated unforgivingly, as it was his nature to, on the

injurious and unprovoked treatment he had received. For the hisses,

suborned as they evidently were, did not constitute the worst abuse he

had to bear. Three or four of the London newspapers, known as organs of

special dramatic interests, most notably the organ of the bosom friend

of Macready, noticed him and his performances in a tone of comment

shamefully without warrant in truth. A few specimens will suffice to

prove the justice of this statement:

"Mr. Forrest's Othello is a burlesque of the elder Kean's mannerisms,

his air of depressed solemnity, prolonged pauses, and startling

outbursts, with occasional imitations of Vandenhoff's deep-voiced

utterance, varied by the Yankee nasal twang. His presence is not

commanding, nor his deportment dignified; for the assumption of

grandeur is not sustained by an imaginative feeling of nobleness. His

passion is a violent effort of physical vehemence. He bullies Iago, and

treats Desdemona with brutal ferocity. Even his tenderness is affected,

and his smile is like the grin of a wolf showing his fangs. The killing

of Desdemona was cold-blooded butchery."

"Our old friend Mr. Forrest afforded great amusement to the public by

his performance of Macbeth. Indeed, our best comic actors do not often

excite so great a quantity of mirth. The change from an inaudible

murmur to a thunder of sound was enormous. But the grand feature was

the combat, in which he stood scraping his sword against that of

Macduff. We were at a loss to know what this gesture meant, till an

enlightened critic in the gallery shouted out, 'That's right! sharpen

it!'"

"Of Mr. Edwin Forrest's coarse caricature of Lear we caught a glimpse

that more than sufficed to show that the actor had no conception of

the part. His Lear is a roaring pantaloon, with a vigorous totter, a

head waving as indefatigably as a china image, and lungs of prodigious

power. There only wanted the candlewick mustaches to complete the stage

idea of a choleric despot in pantomime."

"Mr. Forrest's Richard the Third forms no exception to those murderous

attacks upon Shakspeare which this gentleman has so ruthlessly made

since his arrival amongst us. Since the time of that elder Forrest, who

had such a hand in the murder of the princes in the Tower, we may not

inappropriately take this last execution of Richard at Drury Lane to be

'The most arch deed of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.'

"We have tried very hard, since witnessing the performance, to discover

the principle or intention of it; but to no effect. We remember

some expressions, however, in an old comedy of Greene's, which may

possibly suggest something to the purpose. 'How,' says Bubble, on

finding himself dressed out very flauntingly indeed,--'how apparel

makes a man respected! The very children in the street do adore me!'

In almost every scene Mr. Forrest blazed forth in a new and most

oppressively-gilded dress, for which he received precisely the kind of

adoration that the simple Bubble adverts to."

But while the hostile papers characterized the change in the acting

of Forrest from what it was on his earlier visit as an unaccountable

deterioration, and censured him without reason, other journals took

up his defence, praised his performances warmly, and affirmed that he

had made great improvement. What the former stigmatized as a becoming

dull, cold, and formal, the latter eulogized as an outgrowing of former

extravagance and an acquiring of refinement, measure, and repose. As

he went on playing, his opponents diminished in numbers and virulence,

while his supporters increased, and at last he had conquered a real

triumph. It will be well to quote a few of the notices which appeared

in friendly and impartial quarters in contrast to those of an opposite

character already cited.

The Athenæum, in speaking of his opening night in Macbeth, said, "Mr.

Forrest's former manner has received considerable modification and

become mellowed with experience. He has learned that repose is the

final grace of art. In the startling crises of the play his voice and

action, both without effort, spring forth with crushing effect, not

because he is an actor who chooses thus to manifest strength, but

because he is a strong man, who simply exerts his excited energies.

Macbeth, as he now performs it, is a calm and stately, almost a

sculpturesque, piece of acting."

The Sun called his Lear a decisive triumph, and used the following

words:

"Those contrasts, in which he delights, all tell well in the character

of Lear, and they were used with excellent discrimination and great

effect. There was something appalling in the bursts of fury with which

that weak-bodied but intensely-impassioned old man was occasionally

convulsed. The tottering gait, the palsied head, the feeble footsteps

of old age were admirably given; but the deep voice and the manly

contour of the figure showed that it was the old age of one who had

been, in the heyday of life, 'every inch a king.' It was the old

oak tottering to its fall, but the monarch of the forest still. The

passion, too, was most artistically worked up to a climax, increasing

in intensity from the scene in which he casts off Cordelia, through

the scene in which he curses Goneril, until in the scene in which

he becomes convinced of the treason of Goneril, when it became the

desolating hurricane, destroying even reason itself. The scenes with

Edgar were beautifully given. The different phases of the approach

of madness were admirably marked. You could see, as it were, reason

descending from her throne. The scene with Gloucester, too, was very

fine; the biting apothegms which Shakspeare has in this scene put into

the mouth of Lear were given with heartless, bitter, scornful, laughing

sarcasm, which is perhaps one of the most unfailing characteristics of

madness. The recognition of Cordelia was beautifully touching, and the

lament over her dead body was given with an expression of heart-rending

pathos of which we did not before imagine Mr. Forrest capable."

The praise given by the Times was still more emphatic:

"Mr. Forrest's Lear is, from beginning to end, a very masterly,

intelligent, and powerful performance, giving evidence of the most

careful and attentive study of the author's meaning, steering clear, at

the same time, of all fine-drawn subtleties and tricky point-making,

and affording a well-grasped and evenly-sustained impersonation of

that magnificent and soul stirring creation. He is certainly a better

Lear than any our own stage has afforded for some time. Although,

from Mr. Forrest's personal appearance, one would with difficulty

imagine him capable of looking the old man, fourscore and upwards, all

the attributes of age and feebleness, the palsied head and tottering

walk, are admirably assumed, and are never lost sight of throughout

the performance. At his first appearance he was received with

considerable applause, which was repeatedly renewed as he continued

with the scene,--commencing in a tone of kingly dignity and paternal

affection, and, after Cordelia's reply, gradually giving place to the

suppressed workings of his rage, which at last burst forth, at Kent's

interference, into an ungovernable storm, and lit up his features with

the most withering expression of fury. The curse at the end of the

second act, which was pronounced by Mr. Forrest in one scream of rage,

his body tremulously agitated with the violence of his emotion, brought

down burst after burst of applause, which lasted considerably after

the fall of the drop; and indeed an attempt was made to introduce that

very unusual compliment when the play is still unfinished, a call for

the actor. Such displays of physical power, although in this instance

perfectly called for and necessary, are not, however, the chief or the

best points on which the merits of Mr. Forrest's performance rest.

The scene where he discovers Kent in the stocks, and is subsequently

confronted with his two daughters, whose insults finally drive him off

distracted, was acted with great play and variety of expression,--Mr.

Forrest passing from one emotion to the other with childish fitfulness,

and displaying a keen and discriminate perception. The mad scenes

also in no less degree evinced the higher qualities of the actor. The

declamatory bursts of passionate satire on the vices and weaknesses

of the world, chaotically mingled with the incoherences of madness,

had evidently been a subject of minute study, and were shaded with

admirable nicety, the features constantly expressing the alternate

return of light and darkness on the old man's brain. In the last

act, the touching simplicity and tenderness of his manner, when too

exhausted for violent emotion, and the last burst of feverish energy

over the body of Cordelia, were equally well conceived. If there be any

fault to find, it was with the death, which was, perhaps, too minutely

true in its physical details.

"Mr. Forrest was called for at the conclusion, and received

enthusiastic marks of approbation."

The following extract is from a notice of his Othello by the John Bull:

"Mr. Forrest's former visit to this country must be fresh in the

memory of theatrical amateurs. His talents were then generally

admitted; but it was remarked that, though he possessed force, it

was more of a physical than a moral kind, and that his action was

more akin to melodrama than to tragedy. Since that time Mr. Forrest

seems considerably changed, and for the better. His action has become

more quiet, chaste, and subdued. It is now, perhaps, too careful and

measured, and we rather missed something of his former rough and

somewhat extravagant energy. We cannot help thinking that one or two

of our contemporaries have relied rather on their remembrance of what

Mr. Forrest _was_ than their perception of what he _is_. On the whole,

his representation of Othello well merited the immense applause it

received."

Scores of notices like these in the best portion of the English press

prove conclusively enough the malignity of writers who could denounce

their American visitor as a theatrical impostor, worthy of nothing

but contempt. The London Observer, for example, could find nothing

better to say of the Metamora of Forrest than this: "His whole dramatic

existence is a spasm of rage and hatred, and his whole stage-life

one continuous series of murder, arson, and destruction to life and

property in its most hideous form. What a pity he could not be let

loose upon the drab-colored swindlers of Pennsylvania! Mr. Forrest did

not indicate one of the characteristics of the American Indian except

that wretched combination of sounds between a whine, a howl, and a

gobble, which is designated the war-whoop by those who think more of

poetry than of truth. Besides this sin of omission, he has to answer

for those sins of commission which so sadly deface his impersonation

of every part he has appeared in, namely, that cool, nonchalant

manner, that slow motion, and that ridiculous style of elocution, now

whispering, now conversational, ever and anon screaming, roaring,

bellowing, and raving, but never sustained, truthful, or dignified:

'List to that voice! Did ever discord hear

Sounds so well fitted to her untuned ear?'"

The Age and Argus spoke of the most extraordinary contrast of the

conduct of a part of the press towards Mr. Forrest to the treatment he

received when he acted at Drury Lane in 1836, and said, "Many persons

intimate that had he been now engaged there instead of appearing at the

Princess's, the theatrical reporters would have been unable to discover

a single fault in his performances,--managerial tact being competent

to guide the honest opinions of most of these gentry. The 'Observer'

endeavors to depict Mr. Forrest as a fool, an idiot, whose performance

is simply ludicrous; albeit we have reason to believe the writer is

the self-same person who seven years ago tried to write him up as a

first-rate tragedian."

Forrest thought, from some direct proofs and a mass of circumstantial

evidence, he could trace the fierce hostility with which he was met

to its chief source in Macready. He may have been mistaken; but such

was his belief. Macready, returning from America irritated towards him

as a more than formidable rival before the people, was now idle, and

had repeatedly failed to draw a remunerative audience in London. In

fact, such was the temper of the man that when manager Bunn was nightly

losing money by him, and, in order to make him break his engagement,

purposely vexed him by casts which he disliked, he one night rushed

off the stage in a fury, and, without a word of provocation, fell on

Bunn, a much smaller and weaker man, and beat him so dreadfully that

the poor manager lay in bed in frightful agony for two weeks. He was

prosecuted, convicted, and forced to pay a hundred and fifty pounds

damages. Macready was the intimate friend of the theatrical critic

who abused Forrest the most unrelentingly. He was the intimate friend

of Bulwer Lytton, who refused the request of Forrest to be allowed to

appear in his two plays of "Richelieu" and "The Lady of Lyons." He was

the intimate friend of Mitchel, the manager of the English theatrical

company in Paris, who rudely refused to see Forrest when he applied to

him for an interview. This last circumstance was especially mortifying,

as he had informed his friends before leaving home that he intended to

perform in Paris, and flattering notices of him and of his purposed

appearance among them had been published in the French press.[A]

Macready himself had failed to make an impression in Paris, and the

English company there was not pecuniarily successful. Forrest believed,

whether correctly or not, that his rival had interfered to prevent his

engagement there. Thus his antagonism was edged with a sharper hate.

[A] "Forrest a reçu le surnom de Talma de l'Amérique, et ce surnom

n'est point immérité. Forrest, de stature plus grande, plus athlétique

que Talma, a avec lui une certaine ressemblance de tête. Il a étudié

ce grand modèle auquel il a gardé une sorte de culte, et, dans son

dernier voyage de Paris, en 1834, sa première visite fut à la tombe du

grande artiste, sur laquelle il alla modestement et secrètement déposer

une couronne. Il y a quelque choses de touchant et d'éloquent dans cet

hommage apporté des rives lointaines du Nouveau-Monde à celui qui fut

le roi du théâtre européen. Forrest a dans son répertoire certains

rôles qui auront pour le public français un grand attrait de nouveauté.

Tel est, par exemple, celui de l'Indien Metamora, qu'il rend avec tant

d'énergie et de sauvage vérité. A son talent de premier ordre, Forrest

a dû non-seulement une réputation sans rivale en ce pays, mais encore

une très-belle fortune. Il est aussi haut placé comme homme que comme

artiste. Il est l'un des tribuns les plus éloquents du parti démocrate,

et il été un moment question de le nommer représentant du peuple au

congrès. Il a donc tout espèce de titres à une réception brillante et

digne de lui de la part du peuple parisien, si hospitalier à toutes

les gloires. A sa titres nombreux à cette hospitalité, M. Forrest en

a ajouté un encore, s'il est possible, par la manière honorable et

cordiale dont il a parlé de la France dans le discours d'adieu qu'il

a adressé l'autre jour aux habitans de Philadelphie. Voici la fin

de ce _speech_: 'Pendant le voyage que je vais faire à l'étranger,

je me propose de donner quelque représentations dans la capitale

de la France, où je recevrai, je n'en doute pas, l'accueil le plus

bienveillant et le plus cordial. Je crois que je ne hasarde rien en

osant tant espérer. Je parle d'après ma connaissance personnelle du

peuple français, au sein duquel je sais qu'un Américain est toujours

bien venu. Un Américain se souvient avec gratitude que la France a été

l'alliée, l'amie de son pays, dans la guerre de son indépendance, et la

nation française n'a point oublié que c'est à l'exemple de l'Amérique

qu'elle doit son initiation à la grande cause de la liberté humaine.'"

Meanwhile, the respective adherents of the rivals fanned the flames of

the quarrel by their constant recriminations in the press, and kept

the controversy spreading. Criticisms, accusations, rejoinders, flew

to and fro between the assailants and the champions of each side. An

extract from an article by one of the best-informed of the English

friends of the American actor, though obviously written with a bias,

yet throws light in several directions. He says, "There are half a

dozen writers for the press in London who are recipients of constant

attentions from the clique with which Macready lives, a clique of wits,

artists, authors, and men-about-town, who hover in the outskirts of

high life and form a barrier stratum between the lesser aristocracy and

the critics. The critics support upward, the clique transmit notice

downward, and Macready controls this clique by the consequence he has

as favored by the noblemen who play the patron to his profession.

Forrest is a true republican, and cannot be a courtier,--

'He would not flatter Neptune for his trident.'

He neglects the finical rules and scorns to observe the demands of the

courtly circles which arrogate all superiority to themselves." Under

these circumstances a growing dislike and a final collision between the

men were inevitable by the logic of human nature.

Thus the quarrel went on, nor was confined to the scene of combat.

Its echoes rolled back to America, growing as they went, and adding,

somewhat extravagantly, to their individual import a national

significance. A long article appeared in the "Democratic Review,"

entitled "Mr. Forrest's Second Reception in England." A portion of it

will be found still to possess interest and suggestiveness:

"It is the fortune of this country to send over the water from time to

time men who are palpable and obvious embodiments of its spirit, and

who do not fail, therefore, to stir the elements among which they are

cast.

"Daniel Webster was one of these; and we all recollect how his motions

were watched, his words chronicled, his looks at court, in Parliament,

and at agricultural dinners taken down. They felt that he was a genuine

piece of the country, and, in presence of his oak-ribbed strength of

person and understanding, acknowledged that he belonged to the land he

came from. Mr. Forrest is another of these; quite as good in his way;

struck out of the very heart of the soil, and vindicating himself too

clearly to be misunderstood, as a creature of its institutions, habits,

and daily life. His biography is a chapter in the life of the country;

and taking him at the start, as he appears on the Bowery stage (a

rugged, heady, self-cultured mass of strength and energy thrown down

in the most characteristic spot in the American metropolis), and

running on with him through all his career, in the course of which it

became necessary for him more than once to take society by the collar,

down to the day when, in his brass-buttoned coat, he set out for this

second expedition to Europe, we shall find him American every inch, the

growth of the place, and well entitled to make a stir among the smooth

proprieties of the Princess's Theatre. And he has done so. When, after

an absence of something like seven years, he heaves up his sturdy bulk

against the foot-lights on the English house, the audience know him at

once to be genuine: but lurking in the edges of the place are certain

sharp-eyed gentlemen, who in the very teeth of the unquestionable force

before them, massive, irregular it may be, discover that Mr. Forrest

has lapsed from his early manner, and has subsided into tameness and

effeminacy!

"Mr. Forrest's English position at this moment is, in our view, just

what his true friends would desire. He is carrying his audiences with

him; and has from the press just the amount of resistance required to

rouse him to new efforts, and to bring out the whole depth and force of

New-Worldism in him, to play an engagement such as he has never played

before, and to measure himself in assured strength by the side of the

head of the English school.

"Mr. Macready, an admirable performer, succeeds by subduing all of the

man within him; because he ceases, in the fulfilment of his function

as an actor, to have any fellowship with the beatings and turmoils and

agitations of the heart. He is classical in spirit, in look, and action.

"It is because he is a man of large heart, and does not forget it in

all the mazes of the stage, that Mr. Forrest has sway with the house.

He never loses sight of the belief that it is he, a man, with men

before him, who treads the boards, and asks for tears, and sobs, and

answers of troubled hearts. It is no painted shadow you see in Forrest;

no piece of costume; no sword or buckler moving along the line of light

as in a procession; but a man, there to do his four hours' work; it may

be sturdily, and with great outlay of muscular power, but with a big

heart; and if you fail to be moved, you may reasonably doubt whether

sophistication has not taken the soul out of you, and left you free to

offer yourself for a show-case or a clothier's dummy.

"We take an interest in Mr. Forrest because we see in him elemental

qualities characteristic of the country, and we feel therefore any

slight put upon him as, in its essence, a wound directed at the country

itself. He carries with him into action, upon the stage, qualities

that are true to the time and place of his origin. Whether rugged or

refined, he is upon a large scale, expansive, bold, gothic in his

style; and it is not, therefore, matter of wonder that he should have

encountered, both at home and abroad, the hostility of simpering

elegance and dainty imbecility."

Concluding his London engagement, Forrest proceeded to the principal

cities of the United Kingdom and appeared in his leading rôles, and was

uniformly greeted with full houses and unstinted applause. The tone of

the press towards him was everywhere highly flattering. At Sheffield

in particular his success was great. The dramatic company were as

much pleased with him as the audiences were, and took occasion on his

closing night to express their sentiment in a manner which gratified

him deeply. After the tragedy of Othello, Mr. G. V. Brooke, who had

sustained the part of Iago, invited Forrest to meet the theatrical

company in the green-room, and, entirely to his surprise, addressed him

thus:

"SIR,--A most pleasing duty has devolved upon me, in being deputed by

my brother actors to express the gratification and delight we have

experienced in witnessing your powerful talent as an actor, and your

courteous and gentlemanly bearing to your brother professors of the

sock and buskin. I am obliged to be very brief in my remarks, as some

of the gentlemen around me will have, in a very short time, to be on

duty at the post of honor. Allow me, then, sir, before you return to

the land of your birth, of which you are a brilliant ornament, to

present you, in the name of myself and brother actors, with this small

testimonial of our esteem, and to wish that health and prosperity may

attend you and Mrs. Forrest, whatever part of the globe it may be your

lot to visit."

The following was the inscription on the testimonial, which was a very

elegant silver snuff-box: "Presented to Edwin Forrest, Esq., by the

members of the Sheffield Theatrical Company, as a mark of their esteem

for him as an ACTOR and a MAN. January 30, 1846."

Forrest replied in the following words:

"I accept this gratifying token of the kind feeling entertained

towards me by the members of this company with mingled sentiments of

pride and satisfaction. Believe me, there is no praise that could be

awarded to my professional exertions so dear to me as that which is

offered by my brother actors; for they who, through years of toil,

have labored up the steep and thorny pathway which leads to eminence

in our laborious art, can alone appreciate the difficulties that must

be encountered and overcome. I shall ever look back with sincerest

pleasure to my intercourse with the Sheffield dramatic corps, to whose

uniform kindness I am greatly indebted for their prompt and cordial

co-operation in all the professional duties which we have been called

upon to perform together. Both here and at Manchester I have found you

always ready and willing to second my views, and any request made to

you at rehearsal in the morning you have never failed to perform with

alacrity and promptitude at night.

"You have in the kindest terms alluded to the courtesy which you

have been pleased to say has characterized my conduct towards all

the members of the company. In reply, I can only say, you have, each

and all, met me with an entirely correspondent feeling, and I thank

you from my heart. These same courtesies shown to one another are

productive of a vast amount of good. I cannot but remember that I, too,

have gone through the 'rough brake,' that I, too, began the profession

in its humblest walks; and I have not forgotten the pleasing and

inspiring emotions that were awakened in my youthful breast when I have

received a kind word, or an approving smile, from those who were 'older

and better soldiers' than myself. And at the same time my experience

has taught me that there is no one engaged in the art, be he ever so

humble, but some advantage may be gleaned from his observations. As I

knew not until this moment of your kind intention to present me with

this flattering testimonial, I am wholly unprepared to thank you as I

ought. There are feelings too deep to be expressed in words; and such

are my feelings now.

"Once more, I thank you: and permit me to add that, should any here, by

life's changing scene, be '_discovered_' in my country, I shall take

sincerest pleasure in promoting his views to the best of my ability."

While at Sheffield, Forrest attended a banquet given in honor of the

birthday of Robert Burns. In response to a toast proposed by the

chairman, "The health of Mr. Edwin Forrest, and Success to the Drama in

America," he said some of his earliest human and literary memories were

linked together with the story of Scotland and the genius of Burns.

His own father had left the Scottish hills to seek his fortune in an

American city. His earliest tutor, who had taken a generous interest

in him in his opening boyhood, and taught him to recite some of the

finest of the poems of Burns, was another Scottish emigrant,--Wilson

the ornithologist. After a few other words, he closed by reciting the

eloquent poem of his friend Fitz-Greene Halleck in memory of Burns,

which was received with vociferous cheering:

"Praise to the Bard! His words are driven,

Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,

Where'er beneath the arch of heaven

The birds of fame have flown.

"Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,

Shrines to no code or creed confined,--

The Delphian vales, the Palestines,

The Meccas of the mind."

The Manchester Guardian published a critique on the Spartacus of

Forrest quite remarkable for its intelligent discrimination and choice

diction. As a description it is very just, but utterly mistaken in its

apparent implication that the spiritual should be made more distinctly

superior to the physical in this part. The writer seems not to have

remembered that Forrest was impersonating a semi-barbaric gladiator,

in whom, when under supreme excitement, the animal must predominate

over the intellectual. It would be false to nature to depict in such a

man under such circumstances ideality governing sense, reason calmly

curbing passion. It would be as absurd as to give a pugilist the mental

splendor and majesty of a Pericles. The way in which the critic paints

Forrest as representing Spartacus is exactly the way in which alone

the character could be represented without a gross violation of truth:

"This is, perhaps, of all others, the character in which Mr. Forrest

most excels; nay, stands alone. It implies and demands great physical

strength, a man of herculean mould, and we doubt if ever we shall again

look upon so fine a model of the lionhearted Thracian. That he is a

barbarian, too, is in favor of the actor; for what would be blemishes

in the polished Greek or haughty Roman are in keeping with the rude,

untutored nature of the Thracian mountaineer. Since his former visit,

Mr. Forrest has certainly improved, especially in the less showy

passages of the play; and we admire him most in the quiet asides, the

quick and clear directions as to the disposition of his troops, and

any other portions of the dialogue that do not demand great emotion.

In these he is natural and truthful. As before, when he comes to the

delineation of the deeper passions of our nature, it is by energetic

muscular action, and by the fierce shoutings or hoarse raving of his

voice, that he conveys the idea,--not by any of the nicer touches of

mental discrimination and expression. This course--an original one, in

which perhaps he stands supreme--is most effective, or rather least

defective, in this play, for the reason already given: in it his

acting is of a high, but certainly not of the highest, order. It is

the material seeking to usurp the throne of the ideal; physical force

clutching at the sceptre of the intellectual; with what success the

immutable laws of matter and mind will now, as ever, pronounce, in

their irreversible decrees. Still, it is an extraordinary histrionic

picture, which all lovers of the drama should contemplate. It is not a

thing to be laughed at or sneered down. Power there is; at times great

mental, as well as physical, power; but in the thrilling situations

of the piece, that which should be the slave becomes the master; and

energy of body reigns supreme over subordinated intellectual expression

and mental dignity. He is the Hercules, or the Polyphemus, not the

high-souled hero; and, in his fury, the raging animal rather than the

goaded and distracted man."

In Ireland, the acting of Forrest, the magnetic power of his

personality, the patriotic sentiments and stirring invectives against

tyranny with which his Spartacus and Cade abounded, conspired to

arouse a wild enthusiasm in his passionate and imaginative audiences,

and his appearances at Cork, Belfast, Dublin, were so many ovations.

The effect of his Jack Cade may be seen in this notice from the Cork

Examiner:

"The object of the writer seems to be to rescue Cade from the

defamation of courtly chroniclers and historians, who, either imbued

with an aristocratic indifference to the wrongs of an oppressed

people, or writing for their oppressors, misrepresented the motives

and ridiculed the power of the Kentish rebel. In this the author has

succeeded; for he flings round the shoulders of the rustic the garb

of the patriot, and fills his soul not only with a deep and thorough

hatred of the oppressors who ground the people to the earth and held

them down in bondage, but breathes into his every thought a passionate

and beautiful longing after liberty. The powerful representation of

such a play must produce a corresponding impression upon any audience;

how strong its appeal to the sympathies of an _Irish_ audience, may be

better imagined than described. It abounds with passionate appeals to

liberty, withering denunciations of oppression, and stinging sarcasms,

unveiling at a glance the narrow foundation upon which class-tyranny

bases its power and usurpation. In fact, from beginning to end, it is

an animated appeal to the best sympathies of MAN, stirring him to the

depths of his nature, as with a trumpet's blast.

"An objection might be made to some passages, that they are too

declamatory; but this is rather praise to the discrimination and

fidelity of the author to nature, than a reproach. When a leader has to

stir men's blood, to make their strong hearts throb, he uses not the

'set phrase of peace,'--he does not ratiocinate like a philosopher,

insinuate like a pleader; he talks like a trumpet, with tongue of

fire and with words of impassioned eloquence. Sufferings, wrongs,

indignities, dishonor to gray hairs and outrage to tender virginhood,

are not to be tamely told of, but painted with vivid imagination until

the heart again feels its anguish and the brow burns at the wrong. This

is the direct avenue to men's hearts,--the only way to rouse them to

desperate action; and hence the justice of Cade's declamation, when

addressing the crushed bondmen of Kent.

"Mr. Forrest's Aylmere had nothing in it of the actor's trick,--it

was not _acting_. He seemed thoroughly and entirely to identify himself

with the struggles of an enslaved people; and as every spirit-stirring

sentence was dashed off with the energy of a man in earnest it seemed

as if it had its birthplace in the heart rather than in the conceiving

brain. One passage, in which he calls down fierce imprecations on

the head of Lord Say, the torturer of his aged father and the coward

murderer of his widowed mother, was magnificently pronounced by Mr.

Forrest, amidst thunders of applause, as if the sympathy of the

audience ratified and sanctified the curse of the avenging son. Such is

the power of true genius!--such the force of passion, when legitimate

and earnest!"

At Cork he received the compliments of a poet in the happy lines that

follow:

"O'er the rough mass the Grecian sculptor bent,

And, as his chisel shaped the yielding stone,

Rising, the world-enchanting Venus shone,

And stood in youth and grace and beauty blent.

Thus o'er each noble speaking lineament

Of thy fine face, thy genius, FORREST, shines,

And paints the picture in perfection's lines.

With plastic skill Prometheus formed the clay;

Yet soul was wanting in the image cold

Till through its frame was shed life's glorious ray

And fire immortal lit the mindless mould.

Thus, while thy lips the poet's words unfold,

With the rough ore of thought thy fancies play,

And, with a Midas power, turn all they touch to gold!"

On his farewell night he acted Macbeth to a brilliant house. As

the drop-scene fell at the close of the last act, deafening shouts

re-echoed through the house, with calls for Forrest, which, on his

coming in front of the curtain to acknowledge them, were renewed and

kept up for a considerable time, the people rising _en masse_, and

paying the most marked tribute of their estimation. On silence being

restored, he said,--

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--Exhausted as I must necessarily feel, owing

to the character I have sustained, I cannot find language adequate to

express the sentiments that fill my bosom, neither am I able to return

suitable acknowledgments for the kindness which you are pleased to

evince towards me. I beg to thank you sincerely for the cordiality

and courtesy which I have experienced from the hospitable citizens of

Cork during my short sojourn in this 'beautiful city.' Long shall I

remember it, and in returning to my native country I shall bear with me

the grateful recollection of that courtesy and hospitality; and, when

there, I shall often think with pleasure and pride on the flattering

reception you were pleased to honor me with. I wish you all adieu, and

hope that the dark cloud that overhangs this fair country will soon

pass away; that a happier and brighter day will beam on her, and that

Ireland and her people will long enjoy the prosperity and happiness

they are so eminently entitled to, and which are so much to be desired."

He was quite as triumphant in Dublin as in Cork. The notice of his

opening in Othello shows this:

"Mr. Forrest, the American tragedian, made his first appearance on

Monday night, as Othello. The selection of the character was, for an

actor of great power, most judicious; for in all the glorious range

of Shakspeare's immortal plays there is not one so powerful in its

appeal to the sympathies of our nature, so masterly in its anatomy of

the human heart, or so highly-wrought and yet so beautiful a picture

of passion,--nor, for the actor, is there any character requiring more

delicacy of perception and personation in its details, nor so much

of terrible energy of the wrung heart and stormy soul in its bursts

of frenzied passion. An actor without a heart to feel and an energy

to express the fearful passion of the gallant Moor, whose free and

open nature was craftily abused to madness, could give no idea of the

character, and must needs leave the audience as cold and unmoved as

himself.

"But, to one glowing with the divine fire of genius, that wonderful

electricity by which the inmost nature of man is moved, and masses are

swayed as if by the wand of an enchanter, Othello is a noble character

for the display of his power,--a resistless spell, by which the eye

and ear and soul of the audience are held and moved and swayed. We

must admit that such an actor is Mr. Forrest, and that such is the

effect which his personation of the loving, tender, gentle, duped,

abused, maddened Moor produced upon us, and seemed to produce upon

his audience. From the rising to the falling of the curtain the

house was hushed in stilled, almost breathless, attention; and it

was not until stirred by some electrifying burst of passion that the

pent-up feeling of his listeners vented itself in such applause, such

recognition of the justness and naturalness of the passion, as man

gives to man in real life, and when, as it were, the interests of the

actor and the spectators are one. This species of involuntary homage

to the genius of his personation arose not only from the power which

a consummate actor acquires over the feelings of others, but from the

entire absence of all those contemptible tricks of the stage, those

affectations of originality, of individuality,--that is, stamping

the counterfeit manner of the actor upon the sterling ore of the

author,--those false readings and exaggerated declamations, which call

down injudicious but degrading approbation. Mr. Forrest is free from

all these defects. And yet his 'reading' is singularly telling. Not

one passage--nay, not one word--of the vivid, picturesque, nervous,

wondrous eloquence of the poet is lost upon the audience. What might

puzzle in the closet is transparent on the stage. The quaint form in

which the divine philosophy of Shakspeare clothes itself seems, by his

reading, its fit and apposite garb,--as if none other could so well

indicate its keen and subtile meaning. And all this is done without

aiming at 'points,' or striving after 'effects.' Then his tenderness

is tenderness--his passion, passion. Possessing a noble voice, running

from the richest base to the sweetest tenor,--if we might so describe

it,--full of flexibility, and capable of every modulation, from the

hurricane of savage fury to the melting tenderness of love, Mr.

Forrest can express all those varied and oftentimes opposite emotions

which agitate our nature, and which Shakspeare, as its most masterly

delineator, represents in all its phases in his immortal creations, and

not least in Othello. We were much struck with the beautiful fidelity

with which Mr. Forrest's look, gesture, tone, and manner painted the

gradual growth of jealousy, from the first faint, vague doubt, to its

full and terrible confirmation, and the change of Othello's nature,

from the frank soldier and the doting husband to the relentless fury of

the avenger. To our mind it was a noble picture,--bold, beautiful, and

delicate."

An event illustrative of the spirit of Forrest occurred on his

last evening in Dublin. The play was "Damon and Pythias." The

Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland entered the theatre with a noble party,

escorted by a military company with martial music. The audience rose

with the curtain, and joined the whole dramatic corps in singing "God

save the Queen." Forrest never once during the play looked towards the

vice-regal box; and in the bows with which he acknowledged an honorary

call from the audience at the close, he studiously avoided seeing

the group of titularly-illustrious visitors. He was a democrat; he

liked the Irish and disliked their English rulers, and he would not

in his own eyes appear a snob. His taste and delicacy in the act were

questionable,--his sturdy honesty unquestionable. It reminds one of

Goethe and Beethoven standing together when the victorious Napoleon

passed in his pomp on the way to Berlin. Both were men of genius and

of nobleness; but the one was socially freed by cosmopolitan culture

and health, the other socially enslaved by natural inheritance and

morbidity. They acted with equal honesty, but in a very different way,

as Napoleon went by. Goethe made a low bow, and stood with inclined

front; Beethoven crushed his hat over his brows, and thrust himself

more stiffly up. Neither he nor Forrest could play the courtier. They

could not in social relations abnegate self and react impersonally

on others. They must assert that they were themselves, and were

democratically willing to allow everybody else the same privilege.

The reception of Forrest in Scotland, notably at Glasgow and Edinburgh,

was all that he could have asked. The first literary organ of Edinburgh

pronounced its judgment thus: "The three leading characteristics of

Mr. Forrest's acting appear to us to be, a bold intellectual grasp of

the written soul of his author; a remarkably vigorous and striking

execution, accompanied by an apparent contempt for mere conventional

rules or customs; and a rare faculty of expressing by the face what

neither pen can write nor tongue tell."

It was at Edinburgh that the actor performed what may perhaps be called

the most unfortunate and ill-omened deed in his life. Attending the

theatre to see Macready play Hamlet, he had applauded several good

points made by his rival. But in the scene where the court are about

assembling to witness the play within the play, and Hamlet says to

Horatio,--

"They are coming to the play; I must be idle.

Get you to a place,"

Macready gallopaded two or three times across the stage, swinging his

handkerchief in rapid flourishes above his head. As he was affecting

to be mad, it does not seem that the action was in any extreme out

of character. But it struck Forrest as inexcusably unworthy, and a

desecration of the author. Accordingly, with his usual unpausing

forthrightness and reckless disregard of appearances, he gave vent

to his disgust in a loud hiss. Macready glowered at him and waved

his handkerchief towards him with an air of contemptuous defiance,

and repeated his movement. The right of a spectator to express his

condemnation of an actor by hissing is unquestioned. Had not Forrest

been himself a brother actor, and in unfriendly relations with

the performer, his hiss would not have been much noticed or long

remembered. But the special circumstances of the case gave it an

indelicacy and a bad taste which aggravated its import and led to

lasting consequences of hatred and violence. The following letter

addressed by Forrest to the editor of the London Times explains the

occasion which called it forth, and furnishes the reasons which in the

mind of its writer justified his primary deed, though they will hardly

be sufficient to justify it in the minds of impartial readers:

"SIR,--Having seen in your journal of the 12th inst. an article headed

'Professional Jealousy,' a part of which originally appeared in the

'Scotsman,' published in Edinburgh, I beg leave, through the medium of

your columns, to state that at the time of its publication I addressed

a letter to the editor of the 'Scotsman' upon the subject, which, as

I then was in Dumfries, I sent to a friend in Edinburgh, requesting

him to obtain its insertion; but, as I was informed, the 'Scotsman'

refused to receive any communication upon the subject. I need say

nothing of the injustice of this refusal. Here, then, I was disposed

to let the matter rest, as upon more mature reflection I did not

deem it worth further attention: but now, as the matter has assumed

a 'questionable shape,' by the appearance of the article in your

journal, I feel called upon, though reluctantly, to answer it.

"There are two legitimate modes of evincing approbation and

disapprobation in the theatre,--one expressive of approval by the

clapping of hands, and the other by hisses to mark dissent; and, as

well-timed and hearty applause is the just meed of the actor who

deserves well, so also is hissing a salutary and wholesome corrective

of the abuses of the stage; and it was against one of these abuses

that my dissent was expressed, and not, as was stated, 'with a view of

expressing his (my) disapproval of the manner in which Mr. Macready

gave effect to a particular passage.' The truth is, Mr. Macready

thought fit to introduce a fancy dance into his performance of Hamlet,

which I thought, and still think, a desecration of the scene, and at

which I evinced that disapprobation for which the pseudo-critic is

pleased to term me an 'offender'; and this was the only time during

the performance that I did so, although the writer evidently seeks, in

the article alluded to, to convey a different impression. It must be

observed, also, that I was by no means 'solitary' in this expression

of opinion.

"That a man may manifest his pleasure or displeasure after the

recognized mode, according to the best of his judgment, actuated by

proper motives, and for justifiable ends, is a right which, until now,

I have never once heard questioned; and I contend that that right

extends equally to an actor, in his capacity as a spectator, as to any

other man. Besides, from the nature of his studies, he is much more

competent to judge of a theatrical performance than any _soi-disant_

critic who has never himself been an actor.

"The writer of the article in the 'Scotsman,' who has most

unwarrantably singled me out for public animadversion, has carefully

omitted to notice the fact that I warmly applauded several points of

Mr. Macready's performance, and more than once I regretted that the

audience did not second me in so doing.

"As to the pitiful charge of 'professional jealousy' preferred against

me, I dismiss it with the contempt it merits, confidently relying upon

all those of the profession with whom I have been associated for a

refutation of the slander.

"Yours respectfully,

"EDWIN FORREST."

March, 1846.

On the appearance in an Edinburgh paper of the severe letter alluded

to in the foregoing, the indignation of Forrest was so intense that

he resolved to inflict summary punishment on its cause. In the early

evening he made an elaborate toilet, donning his best dress-suit,

putting on an elegant pair of kid gloves, carefully sprinkling himself

with cologne, and sought the dramatic critic, whom he supposed to

be the offender, in his customary seat in the upper tier of boxes.

Confronting the writer, he fixed his eyes on him, and through his set

teeth, in the deadliest monotone of suppressed passion, this question

glided like a serpent of speech: "Are you the author of the letter

in the 'Scotsman' relative to my hissing Macready?" The man shrunk a

little, and replied, "I am not." "It is fortunate for you that you are

not; for had you been, by the living God I would have flung you over

the balcony into the pit!" said Forrest, and left the box.

Besides this frightful instance of his angered state of mind, an

amusing one occurred while he was at Edinburgh. He was rehearsing,

when the proprietor and manager of the theatre, a diminutive and

foppish man, with a mincing squeak of a voice, came into the front and

disturbed the actors. Forrest did not recognize him, and cried out,

"Stop that noise!" The intruder retorted, with injured dignity, "This

is my theatre, sir; and I shall make as much noise in it as I please,

and when I please!" The explosive tragedian towered down upon him and

blazed out, in thunder-tones, "Damn you and your theatre! If you ever

dare to interrupt me again in this way when I am rehearsing, I will

knock your damned head off from your damned shoulders!" The terrified

proprietor shrunk away, and did not show himself in the house again

till the day after the tragedian's engagement had ended. Then Forrest

was in the dressing-room, packing his things, when he saw the manager

enter the adjoining room, where the treasurer was sitting. The dapper

little man advanced with nimble step, rubbing his hands briskly, and

asked, in his dapper little voice, "Has the great American pugilist

left town?" Forrest broke into hearty laughter at the ludicrous

contrast, and came forward with both hands extended, and they parted as

very good friends.

On the Fourth of July, Forrest presided at the celebration of the

anniversary of their national independence held by the Americans in

London, at the Lyceum Tavern. The building was decorated with American

flags, and the intellectual exercises after the dinner, introduced

by the chairman with an effective speech in defence and eulogy of

republican institutions, were sustained till a late hour with much

enthusiasm.

While in London--it may possibly be that the adventure occurred

during his previous visit--Forrest called, by invitation, on Jerome

Bonaparte, who was then residing there, and who had seen several of

his impersonations, and had expressed a high opinion of their merits.

In the course of their conversation, Forrest asked Jerome if he had

been personally acquainted with Talma. Smiles broke over the face

of the ex-king like sunny couriers from a hive of sweet memories,

as he replied, in an exquisitely-modulated voice, "I had the honor

of knowing that distinguished man well, and I esteemed him for his

character as much as I admired him for his art. He was an honest

patriot, who regarded not the fashions of the day. When Napoleon was

a poor corporal, Talma was his friend, and gave him free passes to

the theatre. He was equally the friend of the emperor, but asked no

preferment or gift from him. He was a republican at the first, and

he remained a republican to the last. His soul, sir, was as sublime

off the stage as his acting was on it." As he spoke these words,

Forrest says, a beam of reminiscent joy seemed at once to light up his

countenance and brighten his voice.

It was the end of August that the player, sore and weary of his exile,

ardently longing for home, sailed for his beloved America, where he

well knew a welcome of no ordinary character would greet him. And so it

proved. The current tone of the press breathed a hearty friendliness.

It assured him that his countrymen had followed his career from his

boyhood to his present proud position with a growing interest, and

that his recent experience abroad had deepened their attachment to

him. Whatever bars had from time to time presented themselves, he had

readily overpassed or brushed away, and he was congratulated on having

always made good his position with the decisive energy characteristic

of his country. He was told that he had secured the affections of the

masses of the people to such a degree that his name was a proverb among

them, and they would now spring to welcome him home as very few are

welcomed.

He waited but four days before appearing as Lear at the Park Theatre.

The New York Mirror says, "The house was crowded to excess. The pit

rose in mass, and long and loud was the applause, clapping of hands,

thumping of canes, waving of hats and handkerchiefs, ending with nine

cheers for Edwin Forrest, given with heart and soul. The recipient

evidently felt it all. Long may this relation between actor and people

be unbroken! It is for the good of both that it should exist. As a man,

Mr. Forrest is worthy of this confidence; as the representative of Lear

and the greatest nobleness of Shakspeare, and the loftiest minds of the

drama, he is trebly worthy of it, for he stands the representative of

an heroic truth and dignity. It is impossible that the people should

witness such a performance as that of King Lear without elevation and

purification of character. On Mr. Forrest's part such a reception must

recall to him, more forcibly than the language of any critic, the

responsibility that rests upon him as one of the chief representatives

of the American stage, an institution which, being yet in its infancy,

has capacity for good or evil, the development of which rests upon

the present generation. Those who look upon the stage now with any

interest regard it with respect to the future, and demand in any actor

or dramatic author a reverence for the theatre, and some services

in its cause. If we thought the theatre would always remain in its

present condition in this country, we should abandon it in despair. But

it cannot so remain, any more than our literature can remain merely

imitative, or our political life low and pestilent as it is. The stage

must rise. No one can render more aid to the cause than Mr. Forrest."

At the close of the play he was honored with the same enthusiastic

greeting as at his entrance, and he said, "Ladies and Gentlemen,--I

have not words fitly to acknowledge a reception so kind, so cordial,

so unexpected. It has so overpowered me that I cannot convey to you

the grateful emotions of my heart. Yet, while a pulse beats here or

memory continues, I shall ever remember the emotions of my soul at this

reception. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you."

The marked advance in the taste and finish of his performance was

owned by all. The Albion said, "He is infinitely more subdued and

quiet in his acting; his readings are more elaborated and studied.

His action and attitudes are more classic in their character; and a

dignified repose, rendered majestic at times by his imposing figure,

gives a tone to his performances wholly unlike the unrepressed energy

and overwhelming physical power that formerly were the prominent

characteristics of his style. As an instance of the beauty of his

present subdued style we would instance the passage in Lear commencing

at

'You see me here, you gods, a poor old man'--

"The whole of this passage was given in a strain of subdued,

heart-broken pathos, exquisitely natural and effective. Similar touches

of genuine feeling are now thrown into his Othello,--which are perfect

triumphs of the art,--as are likewise those well-known bursts of

intense passion, given with a force of physical power unapproachable

perhaps by any living actor.

"Mr. Forrest occupies so prominent a position in his own country, as

the greatest living American actor, as the founder of a school,--for

he has literally founded a school, as may be seen from his numerous

imitators,--and from the influence of his high name,--that we mark

these changes in his style as especially worthy the attention of his

younger and less experienced cotemporaries."

On his benefit night, in response to the call of the auditory, he

made a brief speech, whose tenor showed that he fully felt the

responsibility of his position and meant to be faithful to it.

Returning his thanks, he added, "And, in the hope that you may

continue to approve my efforts, they shall henceforth be employed,

most strenuously, to bring the American stage within the influence

of a progressive movement, to call forth and encourage American

dramatic letters, to advance the just claims of our own meritorious

and deserving actors. Yet, while I shall endeavor to exert an

influence favorable to American actors, you will do me the justice

to believe that I am animated by no ungenerous motives towards the

really deserving of any other country; for I should blush to imitate

that narrow, exclusive, prejudiced, and, I may add, anti-American

feeling which prescribes geographical limits to the growth of genius

and talent. True worth is the birthright of no country, but is the

common property of all. And, ladies and gentlemen, if it pleases you to

applaud and to second, in this endeavor, my humble efforts, I will say

to you, in the language of the old Cardinal in the play,--

"'There's no such word as _fail_!'"

Amidst the cheers elicited by these words, as he made his bow, a

garland, enclosing a copy of verses addressed to him, fell at his feet.

He raised it and retired, while the orchestra struck up "Home, Sweet

Home!"

He then received another flattering compliment from many of the most

prominent of his fellow-citizens:

"NEW YORK, Oct. 10th, 1846.

"EDWIN FORREST, ESQ.

"DEAR SIR,--The undersigned, your friends and fellow-citizens,

desirous of expressing to you personally the high estimation they

entertain for your public and private character, avail themselves of

the occasion of your return from Europe to invite you to a public

dinner, and request that you will set apart one of the few days you

are to remain with us, that may be most convenient to you, to accept

of this slight tribute to your professional excellence and private

worth.

"We are, with great respect,

"Your obedient servants,

"WM. CULLEN BRYANT,

JAMES LAWSON,

SAML. WARD,

CORNELIUS MATHEWS,

WM. F. HAVEMEYER,

PARKE GODWIN,

FITZ-GREENE HALLECK,

B. F. VOORHIS,

PROSPER M. WETMORE,

JAMES F. OTIS,

C. A. CLINTON,

JAS. T. BRADY,

DAVID GRAHAM, JR.,

L. B. WYMAN,

FRANCIS GRIFFIN,

DR. JOHN F. GRAY,

JOHN BRITTON,

ANDREW H. MICKLE,

E. K. COLLINS,

GEORGE DAVIS,

MOSES TAYLOR,

EVERT DUYCKINCK,

H. WEECKS,

E. R. HART,

ISAAC TOWNSEND,

A. INGRAHAM,

JONATHAN STURGIS,

A. G. STEBBINS,

THEODORE SEDGWICK,

GEORGE F. THOMSON,

CHARLES MINTURN,

GEORGE MONTGOMERY,

JOHN P. CISCO,

J. M. MILLER,

HENRY WIKOFF,

D. P. INGRAHAM,

JAS. PHALEN,

W. M. BECKWITH,

MORTIMER LIVINGSTON,

MINTHORNE TOMPKINS,

CHARLES P. DALY,

ROBT. H. MORRIS,

EDWD. VINCENT,

CHARLES M. LEUPP."

To this letter he thus replied:

"NEW YORK, Oct. 12th, 1846.

"GENTLEMEN,--I have had the honor to receive your very kind

letter of the 10th inst., in behalf of a number of my friends and

fellow-citizens, inviting me to a public dinner, and requesting me to

name a day most convenient to myself for its acceptance.

"It did not need this additional testimony to the many already

conferred upon me by my fellow-citizens of New York, to assure me of

their kind regard, and I feel for this, as well as for other tokens

of esteem, that I am indebted more to their kindness than to any

deserving upon my part.

"I accept, however, with pleasure, the invitation you have conveyed

to me in such flattering terms, and, with permission, appoint Friday

next, the 16th instant, as the day to meet my friends as they propose.

"I remain, gentlemen, yours, with sentiments of the highest respect

and regard,

"EDWIN FORREST.

"To Messrs. WM. C. BRYANT, C. A. CLINTON, etc."

Accordingly, the committee of arrangements proceeded to prepare for

the proposed welcome, and selected the New York Hotel as the place. A

large and distinguished company sat down to the banquet. William Cullen

Bryant presided, assisted by David Graham, Jr., James T. Brady, Charles

M. Leupp, and Egbert Benson, as Vice-Presidents.

The first toast was "Our Country."

The next--"The American Stage. Its brilliant morning gives promise of a

glorious day."

In introducing the third toast, Mr. Bryant said, "It is with great

pleasure, gentlemen, that I proceed to fulfil a duty which your

kindness has laid upon me, that of proposing the health of the

distinguished man whom we are assembled to honor. A great actor,

gentlemen, is not merely an interpreter of the dramatic poet to the

sense of mankind; he is something more and greater: he is, in his

province, the creator of the character he represents. It is true that,

from the hints given by the framer of the drama, he constructs the

personage whom he would set before us; but he fills up an outline often

faint, shadowy, and imperfect, and gives it distinctness, light and

shade, and color; he clothes a skeleton with muscles, and infuses it

in the blood and breath of life, and places it in our midst, a being

of soul and thought and moved by the perpetual play of human passions.

Those who have seen the restorations of ancient statues by Michael

Angelo have admired the exquisite art, I should rather say the power

above art, with which the great Florentine--a genius, if ever one

lived--entered into the spirit of the old sculptors, and with what

faithful conformity to the manner of the original work, yet with what

freedom of creative skill, he supplied those parts which were wanting,

and animated modern marble with all the life of the antique. It is

thus with the artist of the stage: he supplies what the dramatist

does not give,--supplies it from the stores of his own genius, though

always in harmony with the suggestions of his author. He often goes

far beyond this: he sees in those suggestions features of character

which the author failed to perceive, or perceived but imperfectly, and

depths of passion of which he had no conception. With these he deals

like a skilful landscape painter, who from a few outlines in pencil,

which to the common eye appear confused and purposeless, brings out

upon the canvas a glorious scene of valley and mountain and dark woods

and glittering waters. Those who have read the Richelieu of Bulwer in

the closet and seen the Richelieu of Forrest on the stage will easily

comprehend what I mean; they have seen the sketch of the dramatist

matured and enriched, and wrought into consistence and strength, and

filled with power and passion, by the consummate art of the actor. How

well our friend has acquitted himself in what is justly esteemed the

highest effect of the histrionic art, that of personating the great

characters of Shakspeare's dramas, it is hardly necessary for me to

say, so ample and so universal is the testimony borne to his success

by intent and crowded audiences. The style of that divine poet is

so suggestive, the glimpses of character he casually but profusely

gives, are of such deep significance that he tasks the powers of the

stage more severely than any other author. To follow out all these

suggestions, to combine all these delicate and sometimes perplexing

traits of character into one consistent, natural, and impressive whole,

requires scarcely less a philosopher than an actor. And well has Mr.

F. sustained this difficult test. Never was the helpless and pathetic

yet majestic old age of Lear more nobly given, or in a manner to draw

forth deeper sympathies; never the struggle between love and suspicion

in the breast of Othello, his jealousy in its highest frenzy, and his

fine agony of remorse, more powerfully represented. After having placed

himself at the summit of his art by the successful representation of

these and other characters of Shakspeare in his own country, he has

lately returned to us with honors gathered in another hemisphere. It

is a source of satisfaction to the friends of Mr. Forrest that he

has not fallen a prey to the follies which so strongly tempt men of

his profession. He has given us another instance of the truth that a

great actor may be an irreproachable man; his private life has been an

example of those virtues which compel the respect even of that class

least disposed to look with favor on the profession of an actor,--such

an example as in the last century made Hannah More the personal friend

of David Garrick. In the intense competitions of the stage, Mr. Forrest

has obeyed a native instinct in treating his rivals with generosity,

and, when beset by calumny and intrigue, has known how to preserve the

magnanimous silence of conscious greatness. Genius may command our

admiration; but when we see the man of genius occupied only in the

endeavor to _deserve_ renown, and looking beyond the obstacles which

envy or malevolence lays in his path to the final and impartial verdict

of his fellow-men, our admiration rises to a higher feeling. Gentlemen,

I will no longer withhold from you the toast,--I give a name, without

a sentiment,--a name which suggests a volume of them,--I give you 'Our

guest, Edwin Forrest.'"

The toast was drunk amidst a tempest of demonstrations.

Mr. Forrest, manifestly agitated by the warmth of these tokens of good

will, replied in a speech which was interrupted with frequent applause.

He said, "Mr. President and gentlemen, I wish I could in adequate

language express my acknowledgments for the distinguished favor you

have conferred upon me this day. But the words which I endeavor to

summon to my lips seem poor and empty offerings in return for those

honors, deep and broad, with which your kindness loads me. The sounds

and sights that meet me here to bid me welcome,--the old familiar

voices that were raised in kind approval of my early efforts,--faces

whose smiles of sweet encouragement gave vigor to my heart to mount

the ladder of my young ambition,--this munificent banquet, spread with

no party views, the generous offering of my fellow-citizens of each

political faith,--the flattering sentiments so eloquently couched by

the distinguished man selected to impart them,--all these have stirred

my bosom with so many mingled feelings that, in the grateful tumult of

my thoughts, I cannot choose words to speak my thanks. A scene like

this is no fleeting pageant of the mimic art, to be forgotten with

the hour; but it is to me one of those sweet realities of life that

fill the heart and vibrate on the memory forever. Among the gratifying

tributes, both professional and personal, which you have paid me, you

have alluded in flattering terms to the silence I have ever observed

when assaulted by calumny or circumvented by intrigue. You will

pardon me, I am sure, if upon this occasion I break that silence for

a moment by referring to the opposition I encountered during my late

reappearance upon the London stage. An eminent English writer, in the

'North British Review,' makes these very just remarks: 'Our countrymen

in general have treated the Americans unkindly and unfairly, and have

been too much disposed to exaggerate their faults and to depreciate

their excellencies.' Here, then, we have an honest and candid avowal

of an indisputable fact. With regard to my own case, even before I had

appeared I was threatened with critical castigation, and some of the

very journals which, upon my former appearance in London, applauded me

to the echo, now assailed me with bitterest denunciations. Criticism

was degraded from its high office,--degraded into mere cavilling,

accompanied by very pertinent allusions to Pennsylvania bonds,

repudiation, and democracy.

'All, all but truth falls still-born from the press.'

Relying implicitly upon the verity of this proposition, I quietly

awaited the expression of the 'sober second thought of the people;'

and I am happy to say I was not disappointed in the result. Their

approving hands rebuked the malice of the hireling scribblers, and

defeated the machinations of theatrical _cliques_ by whom these

scribblers were suborned. But enough of this. I now turn to contemplate

with pride and satisfaction my reception elsewhere. In Edinburgh,--the

most beautiful and picturesque city in Europe, where learning is a

delight and not an ostentation,--my reception professionally was

gratifying in the extreme, while nothing could exceed the friendly

hospitalities of private life, presented, as they were, by those

who to the highest intellectual culture unite the equally estimable

qualities of the heart. And as for Ireland, I need scarcely tell you

that in the land of the warm-hearted Irishman an American is always at

home. There, from the humblest as from the most exalted man he finds

a smile of welcome and a friendly grasp. How could it be otherwise

among a people so full of sensibility and impulse, of unselfishness

and magnanimity,--a people in whom misrule and tyranny have failed to

quench one spark of generous spirit, or to curdle one drop of the milk

of human kindness in their hearts? And now a word touching American

dramatic letters. One of the wishes nearest my heart has ever been

that our country should one day boast a Drama of her own,--a Drama

that shall have for its object the improvement of the heart, the

refinement of the mind,--a Drama whose lofty and ennobling sentiments

shall be worthy a free people,--a Drama whose eloquent and impressive

teaching shall promote the cause of virtue and justice, for on such

foundations must we rely for the perpetuity of our institutions. And

what is to prevent us from having such a Drama? Have we not in our

country all the materials, have we not the capacity for invention and

construction, and have we not pens (turning to Mr. Bryant) already

skilled in the sweet harmonies of immortal verse? In connection with

the cultivation and support of a National Drama, the friends of the

stage will not be unmindful of the claims of our own deserving actors,

among whom, I am proud to say, there are some may challenge successful

comparison with any of the 'Stars' that twinkle on us from abroad,

and, unlike most of those 'Stars,' they shine with their own and not

with a borrowed lustre. One of those actors, to whom I allude, is now

seated among you,--one who, in the just delineation of the characters

he represents, has now no equal upon the stage." (At this allusion to

Mr. Henry Placide, the applause was very enthusiastic.) "In conclusion,

Mr. President and gentlemen, permit me to offer as my sentiment,

'The Citizens of New York, distinguished for a bounty in which is no

winter,--an autumn 'tis that grows the more by reaping.'" (Drunk with

all the honors.)

Mr. Forrest's toast was responded to by the following, by Mr. Mickle,

the Mayor: "The Drama,--it teaches us to honor virtue and talent. We

follow its dictates in rendering honor to our guest to-night."

Mr. Mathews proposed the next toast: "American Nationality. In the

fusion of all its elements in a generous union under the influence of

a noble National Literature lies the best (if not the _only_) hope of

perpetuity for the American Confederacy."

General Wetmore rose and alluded to an eminent man who was present at

the last public dinner given to Mr. Forrest in New York, one of his

dearest friends, and who was now in his grave, and gave "The Memory of

William Leggett," which was drunk standing, and in solemn silence.

Other toasts were proposed, letters were read, speeches made, songs

sung, and every one seemed thoroughly to enjoy the occasion, which

closed by the whole company joining hands and singing "Auld Lang Syne."

Yet, amidst all these honoring and most enjoyable experiences at home,

Forrest had brought back with him from abroad a burning grudge. Shut

up in his bones, it gnawed upon his comfort and peace. The different

theatrical and social parties knew of his grievances through the press.

Among his friends, of course, he conversed freely of them; and there

was a multitude of his admirers among the populace who were as loyal

to him as clansmen to their chief. Their passions exaggeratingly took

up what their intelligence knew little about, and they were ripe for

mischief whenever an opportunity and the slightest provocation should

be afforded them. This, it should be understood, without any purposed

stimulus or overt hint from him. Such was the state of things when

Macready once more came to America. The ingredients were ready for a

popular explosion if a spark should be blown on them. Had the English

tragedian kept silent, the latent storm might not have burst; but,

unhappily, he began at once to make allusions to conspiracies, to

enemies, to a certain class in the community,--allusions which were but

too quickly caught up and applied and resented. And so the virus worked.

Place must here be found for a tender and tragic passage in the life of

Forrest, whose date remained thenceforth a sacred and solemn mark in

his memory,--the death of his mother.

[Illustration:

Dear Lawson,

My Mother is dead.

That little sentence speaks

all I can say, and more--much

more.

Yours truly

Edwin Forrest.

James Lawson.

June 25. 1847.

Philadelphia]

This event occurred, after a brief and not painful illness, on the

twenty fourth of June, 1847, in the seventy-third year of her age. The

preceding fac-simile of the announcement of the sad event to one of his

oldest and dearest friends is expressive in its Spartan brevity.

The day after the burial, one of the papers said, "The funeral of the

mother of Edwin Forrest, the great American tragedian, took place

yesterday. She was buried in St. Paul's churchyard. The emotions of

the actor on taking his last look at the parent who had always loved

and cherished him so tenderly were far more keen than any he had ever

feigned on the stage. We regard the mother of a man of fame and genius

with an involuntary feeling of reverence. We think of her care and

tutoring of her child in his earliest years."

The grief of Forrest when the form of his mother sank from his sight

into the grave was indeed sharp and profound. His friend Forney said

to him afterwards, "I did not suppose you were so sensitive. I saw how

hard you had to struggle to control your feelings; and I think all the

more of you for it."

The loss of his mother was a great misfortune to Forrest, not only

in the sorrow and the sense of impoverishment it gave his heart, but

also in removing the strong restraint she had exerted upon his growing

distaste for society, his deepening resentment at the insincerity and

injustice around him, and his consequent tendency to shut himself up

in himself. If few men ever had a better mother, it may truly be said

few men ever were more faithful in repaying their filial indebtedness.

The love which Forrest cherished for his mother was a charming quality

in his character, and the generous devotedness of his conduct to her

was one of the finest features of his life. He used often to say that

he owed to the early lessons she had taught him everything that was

good in him. "Many and many a time," he said, "when I was tempted to

do wrong, thoughts of my mother, of her love for me, of her faith and

character, of what she would wish me to do and to be, came and drove

the offending temptation away."

We can see something, much, indeed, of her character, by reflection, in

the following letter written to her by Edwin from New Orleans in 1834,

on receipt of the tidings of the death of his brother William:

[Illustration: MOTHER OF EDWIN FORREST.]

"MY DEAR MOTHER,--We have experienced a deep and irreparable loss.

You are deprived of a dutiful and affectionate son, my dear sisters

of a most loving and devoted brother, and I have now none on earth to

call by that tender and endearing name. The intelligence of William's

death was a severe shock to me, so sudden, so unexpected. It seems but

yesterday that I beheld him in the pride of his strength and manhood;

and I can scarcely credit that his 'sensible warm motion has become a

kneaded clod, doomed to lie in cold abstraction and to rot.' Yet is

it a too sad reality, and we must try to bear our affliction as we

ought. After the dreadful impression of the blow, my first thought

was of _you_, my mother. I knew how truly and tenderly you loved him,

and with great anxiety I have felt how deeply you must deplore the

loss of him now. But for my sake, dear mother, for the sake of all

your children, whose chief study in life is to make you happy, do not

give way to grief, lest it impair your health and deprive you of the

enjoyment of the many happy years through which it is our prayer that

you may yet live to bless us. Whatever befalls any of your children,

you must have the great consolation of knowing that in all your

conduct towards them you have always been as faithful and kind and

exemplary as any parent could possibly be.

"I have received letters from my friends Wetherill, Duffy, and

Goodman. When you next see those kind gentlemen, thank them in my name

for their grateful attention.

"I shall be with you in about three weeks, and I long for the time

to come, that I may talk with you face to face about our dear

William, and try, by my redoubled devotion, to make up to you for his

departure. Give my love to Henrietta, Caroline, and Eleanora.

"My dear mother, that your years may be long and increase in comforts

is the sincere prayer of your truly affectionate son,

"EDWIN."

From Vienna, under date of December 10th, 1835, he wrote thus to her:

"MY DEAR MOTHER,--You express a wish that it may not be long before

I am restored to you. You cannot wish this more sincerely than I

do. For, to speak truth, I am weary with this wandering, and sigh

for the sincere and tranquil joys of home. I hope, with the pleasure

and instruction I have received from my journeyings, to entertain

you during some long and friendly winter evenings, when we shall be

cosily seated together in that snug little room of yours by a good

coal-fire. How happy we shall be, dear mother! Then shall I see in

those dark and expressive eyes of yours some occasional symptoms of

doubt at my strange narrations, which, of course, I shall render

both clear and probable by an abundance of testimony. Thus shall our

evenings pass with calm reflection on my 'travel's history,' and you

shall banish all regrets that I have stayed away from you so long. It

will be a melancholy pleasure to contemplate the relics of our poor

Lorman. Time, time, how fleeting and momentary is man's existence when

compared with thy eternal march!"

In another letter to her during this same absence, he says, "Mother,

do you sometimes wish to see your wandering boy and take him to your

arms again? Why do I ask such a question? I know you do. Though all the

world should forget me, I shall still be cherished in your heart; and

your love is worth to me all the admiration of the world besides."

At a later time he wrote, "Beloved mother, it has been so long since I

have heard from you, that I grow anxious to know that you are well and

in the tranquil enjoyment of the blessings of this life. If ever any

one deserved life's peaceful evening,--do not think I flatter,--that

person is yourself. When I reflect upon the trials of poverty you have

endured, how, under the most trying afflictions, you have sustained

yourself with such becoming dignity, I cannot withhold the unfeigned

homage which prompts me to say that I am as proud of you, who gave me

birth, as you can ever have been of me in the choicest hours of my

existence."

And in the latest year of her life he wrote, "Dearly beloved mother,

is there not something I can send you which will give you pleasure?

Anything in the world which it is in my power to obtain you have

only to ask for in order to receive. You know I cannot experience a

keener happiness than in gratifying any desire of yours, to whom I owe

everything."

In the diary he kept during his first visit to Europe, this quotation

from Lavater was copied, with the appended verses: "'I require nothing

of thee,' said a mother to her innocent son, when bidding him farewell,

'but that you bring me back your present countenance.'

"'What shall I bring thee, mother mine?

What shall I bring to thee?

Shall I bring thee jewels that shine

In the depths of the shadowy sea?'

"'Bring me that innocent brow, my boy!

Bring me that shadowless eye!

Bring me the tone of tender joy

That breathes in thy last good-bye!'"

His mother ever remained in his memory a hallowed image of authority

and benignity, a presence associated with everything dear and holy. In

an hour of effusion, near the end of his own life, he said, "When I

saw her great dark eyes fixed on me, beaming with satisfied affection,

and listened to words of approval from her lips, O it was more to me

than all the public plaudits in the world! My God, what a joy it would

be to me now to kneel at her feet and worship her! And they say there

are such meetings hereafter. I know not, I know not. I hope it _is_

so." He had her portrait over the foot of his bed, that her face, as

in his childhood, might be the last sight he saw ere falling asleep,

and the first to greet him when he awoke. And among the papers left at

his death the following lines were found in his handwriting, either

composed by him or copied by him from some unnamed source:

"MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

"Here is my mother's grave. Dear hallowed spot,

The flight of these long years has changed thee not,

Though all things else have changed; e'en this sad heart,

In all, save thoughts of thee, which will not start,

But, woven in my being, burn again

With fires the torch of memory kindles still.

Though I have wandered far in distant spheres,

And mixed in many scenes of joy and tears,

And found in all, perchance, some friends, and loved

One who was even more, I ne'er have roved

From thee, my mother, and thy sacred grave.

I could forget, albeit a task severe,

All forms, all faces, all that love e'er gave,

Save thine, my mother,--that no time can wear.

I have but one sad wish when life is o'er,--

Whatever fate is mine, on sea or shore,

Whoe'er may claim my ashes for a trust,

They still may come to mingle with thy dust.

'Tis fit this troubled heart, when spent with care,

Again should turn to that unfailing breast,

And find at last the home my childhood shared,--

The quiet chamber of my mother's rest."

The wish has been fulfilled, and the forms of mother and son sleep side

by side where no pain, no harsh word, ever comes.

In the September of 1848 Macready had made his reappearance on the

American stage. Some of the friends of Forrest, democrats who had

potent influence with the Bowery Boys, or the muscular multitude of

New York, called on him, and proposed to have the English tragedian

driven from the theatre. Forrest felt that such a course would be

unworthy of him, and, instead of giving him revenge, would dishonor

his name, and make his enemy of increased importance. He refused to

have anything to do with such an attempt, and urged his friends to

drop the matter entirely. They did so. When, however, Macready, taking

advantage of a call before the curtain to make a speech, told the

public that he had been assured that he was to be met by an organized

opposition, and thanked them for the flattering reception which had

"defeated the plan," "baffled his unprovoked antagonists, and rebuked

his would-be-assailants," fresh indignation was stirred, and a great

deal of bad blood kindled. In Philadelphia he was saluted with some

hissing amidst the great applause. He then took occasion to say of

Forrest, directly, "He did towards me what I am sure no English actor

would have done towards him,--he openly hissed me." This caused an

intense excitement in the house, with several personal collisions. The

next day Forrest published a letter in the "Pennsylvanian," replying

to Macready's speech, and arraigning his conduct and his character

in very severe terms. The statements in the letter may all have been

true and just, but it was written in an angry temper, and had better

not have been written. It was not in good taste, and, spreading the

contagion of an inflamed individual quarrel among the community, was of

bad influence. Where his passions were concerned, good taste was not

the motto of Forrest. Downright honesty and justice, rather than the

delicate standards of politeness, were his aim. Macready retorted in a

published card, to which Forrest responded indirectly in several long

letters to a friend. Thus the controversy waxed hotter, and excited

wider and angrier interest. And when the English actor was ready to

begin his closing engagement in New York, in May, 1849, the elements

for a storm were all ready.

We can see the straight hitting from the shoulder of Forrest in every

sentence of his "Card." "I most solemnly aver and do believe that

Mr. Macready, instigated by his narrow, envious mind and his selfish

fears, did secretly suborn several writers for the English press to

write me down." We can see the wounded colossal arrogance of Macready

in the allusion to his antagonist entered in his diary at the time.

"The Baltimore papers characterize the performances of Forrest as

equal, if not superior, to mine, and speak of him as of an artist and a

gentleman. And I am to dwell in this country!" In the quarrel Macready

appears as a vain and fretful aristocrat, observant of the fashionable

code of courtesy, but capable of falsehood; Forrest as a proud and

revengeful democrat, scornful of the exactions of squeamish society,

and quite capable of bad taste. In both is visible the resentful and

morbid egotism of their profession in a blameworthy and repulsive form.

And the whole affair, on both sides, was undignified and ignoble in

its character; and in its public result--though, of course, neither of

them was directly responsible for this--it proved a murderous crime.

It reflects deep and lasting discredit both on the Englishman and on

the American. It may be of some use if it serves to illustrate the

contemptible and wicked nature of the vice of professional jealousy,

and to teach succeeding players whenever in their rivalry they meet

malignant envy or opposition, magnanimously to overlook and forget it.

On the evening of May 7th, Macready was to appear in Macbeth at the

Astor Place Opera House. The entire auditorium was crowded with an

assembly of the most formidable character, resolved that the actor

should not be suffered to play his part. There were comparatively few

of the friends of Macready present, most of the seats being secured

by the hard-handed multitude, who had made the strife an affair of

classes and were bent on putting down the favorite of what they

called the kid-gloved and silk-stockinged gentry. It is disagreeable

thus to recall these odious distinctions, but the truth of history

necessitates it. Suffice it to say that the tragedian was overwhelmed

with hisses, yells, derisive cries, followed by all kinds of missiles.

Chairs were hurled from the gallery, smashing on the stage. When it

was found that life was in danger, the curtain was lowered and the

performance abandoned. Macready proposed to break his engagement and

return to England. But the press condemned in the most scorching terms

the outrage which had been done him, and insisted that he should appear

again, and should be upheld at any cost. A letter was also sent him,

signed by forty-eight gentlemen, including many of the most eminent and

influential names in the city, urging him to continue his performances,

and promising him the support of the community. He consented to repeat

the trial.

In the mean time, the "Courier and Inquirer" had openly accused

Forrest of being the author of the violent scenes on the evening of

the seventh, but, convinced of its error, and threatened with a suit

for libel, had immediately retracted, and amply apologized for the

slander. Forrest had no share of any kind in any of these proceedings.

The worst that can be said of him is that he refused to interfere to

prevent the threatened violence. He sternly refused to interfere in the

slightest degree with the strife which had now detached itself from him

and fastened itself on the community and was raging between its top

and bottom. The defiant and scornful tone of the press towards those

whom it called rabble rowdies, lower classes, greatly incensed them,

and called forth the counter-epithets,--lordlings, English clique,

codfish-aristocracy. It was perfectly plain that a fearful tempest was

brewing. Both parties made preparations accordingly. The enemies of the

Englishman placarded the city with inflammatory handbills; and, on the

other hand, the civic authorities detailed three hundred policemen to

the scene of trial, and ordered two regiments of soldiers to be under

arms at their quarters.

On the evening of the 10th of May, Forrest was acting the Gladiator

in the Broadway Theatre when Macready attempted to act Macbeth in the

Astor Place Opera House. The latter house had been so well packed by

its friends with stalwart men that the Bowery Boys who were able to get

seats found themselves in a most decided minority. Still, they were

numerous enough to make a chaos of diabolical noises when the curtain

rose, whereupon the most of them found themselves incontinently hustled

out into the street. But their party was too strong and filled now with

too terrible a temper to be thus easily circumvented. The mob instantly

assailed the theatre in front and rear. The thundering plunges with

which they rushed against the doors shook the building, and volleys of

stones shattered the barricaded windows, while the shouts and yells of

the crowd might be heard a half a mile away. Meanwhile, the Seventh

Regiment and the National Guards were marching to the spot. They were

received with scoffs and hoots, clubs and paving-stones. The officers,

both civil and military, used every exertion to quiet the rioters and

avoid the final alternative of shooting upon them. All was vain. The

more they harangued, expostulated, entreated, warned, threatened, the

madder the mob seemed to grow. Already a large number of the soldiers

were disabled by severe wounds, and it appeared as if soon their

thronging assailants might wrench their weapons from them. At last the

reluctant order was given by General Hall, "Fire!" A single musket

replied. The mob laughed in derision, and pressed forward. General

Sandford repeated, "Fire!" Only three shots followed the word. Colonel

Duryea shouted, "Guards, fire!" The whole volley instantly flashed

forth with that sharper and heavier report which distinguishes the

service-charge from the mere powder and paper of field-day. The glare

lit up a sea of angry faces. For an instant were clearly seen the human

forms clustered on the steps and roofs of the adjacent buildings, the

broken lamps and windows in front, the billowing multitude spread

through the square and streets,--and then all was dark. The mob broke

and fled, leaving thirty dead bodies on the ground, and as many

severely wounded. The law by its armed force vindicated its authority

at the cost of this frightful tragedy, and taught the passionate and

thoughtless populace a lesson which it is to be hoped no similar

circumstances will ever call for again.

Transcriber's Note:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Small capitals have been capitalised.

[Illustration: EDWIN FORREST. ÆT. 21] has been corrected from at 28

in the list of steel plates.

Illustrations have been moved out of mid-paragraph.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Punctuation has been retained as published.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.