Chapter XII

MERIDIAN OF SUCCESS AND REPUTATION.—NEW RÔLES OF FEBRO, MELNOTTE, AND JACK CADE.

The interest of his friends and of the public at large in the returning actor was increased by the laurels he had won in the mother-country, and the prize hanging on his arm, whose beauty lent a choicer domestic lustre to his professional glory. Wherever he played, the theatre was crowded to overflowing, and the receipts and the applause were unprecedented. The only alloy in his cup—and this was not then so copious or so bitter as it afterwards became—was the acrimonious and envenomed criticism springing alike from the envious and malignant, who cannot see any one successful without assailing him, and from those whose tastes were displeased or whose prejudices were offended by his peculiarities.

While fulfilling an engagement in Boston, he received a very characteristic letter from Leggett, which may serve as a specimen of their correspondence. It will be seen that the tragedian had urged on the editor the writing of a play for him on the theme of Jack Cade and his rebellion. He afterwards induced Conrad to reconstruct his play of Aylmere, which in its original form was not suited to his ideas.

"New York, Wednesday evening, Oct. 25th.

"My dear Forrest,—I was in hopes of having a line from you before this time, telling the Boston news, or so much of it at least as concerns you and yours, which is what I care to hear. But you are determined, I suppose, to maintain the character you have so well earned, of being a most dilatory correspondent. I have had the pleasure of hearing this evening, however, through another channel, that you are drawing full houses; and I trust that all is going on well in other respects. Placide and I took a walk out to Bloomingdale last Sunday afternoon, and as we were returning we conjectured that you and Catherine were just sitting down at the board of Mr. and Mrs. Manager Barry.

"I have been down town this evening for the first time these several days. I extended my walk to the Park Theatre, where Miss Tree was performing Rosalind. The house was about $500; that at the National, Vandenhoff, could not have exceeded $300. Miss Tree's engagement will conclude with her benefit on Friday evening, when she will probably have between $900 and $1000, making her average for the eleven nights about $650. This is considered a very handsome business. Mad. Caridora Allen opens on Monday evening, and her box sheet already shows a fine display of fashionable names. She will have a full and fine house. She has been giving a touch of her quality at some of the soirées of the exclusives, and is pronounced just the thing. The Woodworth benefit limps tediously along. The returning of your money makes a good deal of talk, and the conduct of the committee is much censured. The motive, to injure you, and foist up Vandenhoff at your expense, will meet with a sad discomfiture. My good public is too clear-sighted to be humbugged in so plain a matter.

"I hope you continue to make yourself acquainted with that insolent patrician Coriolanus. He was not quite so much of a democrat as you and I are; but that is no reason why we should not use him if he can do us a service. I wish Shakspeare, with all his divine attributes, had only had a little of that ennobling love of equal human liberty which is now animating the hearts of true patriots all over the world, and is destined, ere long, to effect a great and glorious change in the condition of mankind. What a vast and godlike influence he might have exerted in moulding the public mind and guiding the upward progress of nations, if his great genius had not been dazzled by the false glitter of aristocratic institutions, and blinded to the equal rights of the great family of man! Had I a little of his transcendent intellect, I would assert the principles of democratic freedom in a voice that should 'fill the world with echoes.'

"My own affairs remain in statu quo. I am still undetermined what to do. I have been solicited to write for the democratic 'Monthly Review,' just established in Washington, and there is some talk among the politicians here of getting up a morning paper, and offering me the place of principal editor. I have been turning over the Jack Cade subject; but I confess I am almost afraid to undertake it. The theme is a grand one, and I warm when I think of it; but I must not mistake the ardor of my feelings in the sacred cause of human liberty for ability to manage the mighty subject. Besides, the prejudices and prepossessions of the world are against me, with Shakspeare on their side. Who must not feel his feebleness and insignificance when called to enter the list against such an antagonist? I must do something, however, and shortly; for I can now say, with Jaffier, though unlike him I am not devout enough to thank Heaven for it, that I am not worth a ducat.

"I took a walk out to New Rochelle on Monday afternoon, and returned yesterday morning. I need not say that you were the theme of much of the conversation while I was there. Many questions were asked me concerning your 'handsome English wife.'

"I shall long very earnestly for the 18th of December to arrive, when I count upon enjoying another month of happiness. 'How happily the days of Thalaba went by' during the five weeks of your late sojourn in this city! I shall not speedily forget those pleasant evenings.

"It is past midnight now, and Elmira has been long in bed; otherwise I should be enjoined to add her love to mine.

"Good-night, and God bless you both.

"Yours ever,

"Wm. Leggett."

Not long after his return from England, some of the most distinguished of his fellow-citizens joined in giving him the compliment of a public dinner. The festival was of a sumptuous and magnificent character, and drawing together, as it did, nearly all the marked talent and celebrity of Philadelphia, the honor was felt to be one of no ordinary value. Nicholas Biddle was president, supported by six vice-presidents and eleven managers. The banquet was held on the 15th of December, 1837. Over two hundred gentlemen sat down at the table. Mr. Biddle being kept away by a severe illness, the chair was occupied by Hon. J. R. Ingersoll; Mr. Forrest was on his right, and in the immediate vicinity were Chief-Justice Gibson, Judge Rogers, Recorder Conrad, Colonel Swift, Mayor of the city, Dr. Jackson, of the University of Pennsylvania, Prof. Mitchell, Dr. Calhoun, Dean of Jefferson College, Morton McMichael, Robert Morris, R. Penn Smith, and Messrs. Dunlap, Banks, Bell, and Doran, members of the Convention then sitting to revise the Constitution of the State. Leggett was present from New York, by special invitation.

The room was elegantly ornamented. The name of the chief guest was woven in wreaths around the pyramids of confectionery, branded on the bottles of wine, and embossed about various articles of the dessert. No pains were spared to add to the entertainment every charm of grace and taste adapted to gratify its recipient. One of the city papers said, the next morning,—

"On no former occasion in Philadelphia has there been so numerous and brilliant an assemblage for any similar purpose. The selectness of the company, the zeal and enthusiasm they exhibited, and the cordial greetings they bestowed, must have been especially gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Forrest, springing as these testimonials did from a proud recognition of his worth as a townsman."

The following letter explained the absence of the chosen president of the day:

"Philadelphia, Dec. 15th, 1837.

"Hon. R. T. Conrad,

"My dear Sir,—I regret much that indisposition will prevent me from joining your festival to-day. Feeling, as I do, an intense nationality, which makes the fame of every citizen the common property of the country, I rejoice at all the developments of intellectual power among our countrymen in every walk of life, and I am always anxious to do honor to high faculties combined with personal worth. Such a union the common voice ascribes to Mr. Forrest, and I would have gladly added my own applause to the general homage. But this is impracticable now, and I can therefore only convey through you a sentiment which, if it wants the vigorous expression of health, has at least a sick man's sincerity. It is,—

"The genius of our country, whenever and wherever displayed,—honor to its triumphs in every field of fame.

"With great regard, yours,

"N. Biddle."

The cloth having been removed, Mr. Ingersoll rose, and said,—

"The friends of the drama are desirous of paying a merited tribute of respect and esteem to one of the most distinguished and successful of its sons. Well-approved usage upon occasions not dissimilar has pointed to this our cheerful greeting as a fitting method for carrying their desires into effect. It combines the compliment of public and unequivocal demonstration with the kindness and cordiality of social intercourse. It serves to express at once opinions the result of deliberate judgment, and sentiments warm and faithful from the heart.

"To our guest we owe much for having devoted to the profession which he has selected an uncommon energy of character and peculiar personal aptitudes. They are both adapted to the happiest illustrations of an art which, in the absence of either, would want a finished representative, but, by a rare combination of faculties in him, is enabled effectually 'to hold the mirror up to nature.' It is an art, in the rational pleasures and substantial advantages derived from which all are free to participate, and a large proportion of the educated and liberal-minded avail themselves of the privilege. It is an art which, for thousands of years, has been practised with success, admired, and esteemed; and the men who have adorned it by their talents have received the well-earned plaudits of their age, and the honors of a cherished name.

"To our guest we owe the acknowledgment (long delayed, indeed) of the sternest critics of an experienced and enlightened public, not our own, that of one department at least of elegant literature our country has produced the brightest living representative.

"To our guest we owe especial thanks that he has been the prompt, uniform, and liberal patron of his art; that dramatic genius and merit have never appealed to him for aid in vain; that he has devoted the best-directed generosity, and some of his most brilliant professional efforts, to their cause.

"To our guest we owe unmeasured thanks that he has done much by his personal exertion, study, and example, to identify our stage with the classic drama, and that he has made the more than modern Æschylus—the myriad-minded Shakspeare—ours.

"We owe him thanks, as members of a well-regulated community, that, by the course and current of his domestic life, the reproaches that are sometimes cast upon his profession have been signally disarmed.

"And, in this moment of joyous festivity, we feel that we owe him unnumbered thanks that he has offered us an opportunity to express for him an unfeigned and cordial regard.

"These sentiments are embraced in a brief but comprehensive toast, which I will ask leave to offer,—

"The Stage and its Master."

Amid loud and long applause, Forrest rose, bowed his acknowledgments, and replied,—

"Mr. President and Gentlemen,—I feel too deeply the honor this day rendered me to be able to express myself in terms of adequate meaning. There are times when the tongue is at best but a poor interpreter of the heart. The strongest emotions do not always clothe themselves in the strongest language. The words which rise to my lips seem too cold and vapid to denote truly the sentiments which prompt them. They lack that terseness and energy which the occasion deserves.

"The actor usually comes before the public in a 'fiction, in a dream of passion,' and his aim is to suit his utterance and the ''havior of the visage' to the unreal situation. But the resources of my art do not avail me here. This is no pageant of the stage, to be forgotten with the hour, nor this an audience drawn to view its mimic scenes.

"I stand amidst a numerous throng of the chiefest denizens of my native city, convened to do me honor; and this costly banquet they present to me, a munificent token of public regard. I feel, indeed, that I am no actor here. My bosom throbs with undissembled agitation, and in the grateful tumult of my thoughts I cannot 'beget a temperance to give smoothness' to my acknowledgments for so proud a tribute. In the simplest form of speech, then, let me assure you from my inmost heart, I thank you.

"I have but recently returned from England, after performing many nights on those boards where the master-spirits of the stage achieved their noblest triumphs. You have heard from other sources with what kindness I was received, and with what bounteous applause my efforts were rewarded. Throughout my sojourn abroad I experienced only the most candid and liberal treatment from the public, and the most elegant and cordial hospitality in private. But I rejoice that the time has come round which brings me again to the point from which I started; which places me among those friends whose partial kindness discovered the first unfoldings of my mind, and watched it with assiduous care through all the stages of its subsequent development. The applause of foreign audiences was soothing to my pride, but that which I received at home had aroused a deeper sentiment. The people of England bestowed their approbation on the results of long practice and severe study, but my countrymen gave me theirs in generous anticipation of those results.

"They looked with indulgence on the completed statue; you marked with interest from day to day the progress of the work till the rough block, by gradual change, assumed its present form. Let me hope that it may yet be sculptured to greater symmetry and smoothness, and better deserve your lavish regard.

"The sounds and sights which greet me here are linked with thrilling associations. Among the voices which welcome me to-night I distinguish some which were raised in kind approval of my earliest efforts. Among the faces which surround this board I trace lineaments deeply stamped on my memory in that expression of benevolent encouragement with which they regarded my juvenile attempts, and cheered me onward in the outset of my career. I look on your features, sir" (said Mr. F., addressing himself to the Mayor of the city, who occupied a seat by his right), "and my mind glides over a long interval of time, to a scene I can never forget. Four lustres are now nearly completed since the event occurred to which I allude.

"A crowd was gathered one evening in the Tivoli Garden, to behold the curious varieties of delirium men exhibit on inhaling nitrous oxide. Several years had then elapsed since the great chemist of England had made known the singular properties of exhilarating gas; and strange antics performed under its influence by distinguished philosophers, poets, and statesmen of Europe were then on record. It was yet, however, a novelty with us, and the public experiments drew throngs to witness them. Among those to whom the intoxicating agent was administered (on the occasion referred to) there chanced to be a little unfriended boy, who, in the instant ecstasy which the subtle fluid inspired, threw himself into a tragic attitude and commenced declaiming a passage from one of Shakspeare's plays. 'What, ho!' he cried, 'young Richmond, ho! 'tis Richard calls; I hate thee, Harry, for thy blood of Lancaster.' But the effect of the aerial draught was brief as it was sudden and irresistible. The boy, awaking as from a dream, was surprised to find himself the centre of attraction,—'the observed of all observers.' Abashed at his novel and awkward position, he shrunk timidly from the glances of the spectators, and would have stolen in haste away. But a stranger stepped from the crowd, and, taking him kindly by the hand, pronounced words which thrilled through him with a spell-like influence. 'This lad,' said he, 'has the germ of tragic greatness in him. The exhilarating gas has given him no new power. It has only revealed one which lay dormant in him before. It needs only to be cherished and cultivated to bring forth goodly fruit.'

"Gentlemen, the present chief magistrate of our city was that benevolent stranger, and your guest to-night was that unfriended boy. If the prophecy has been in any degree fulfilled,—if since that time I have attained some eminence in my profession,—let my full heart acknowledge that the inspiriting prediction, followed as it was with repeated acts of delicate and considerate kindness, exercised the happiest influence on the result. It was a word in season; it was a kindly greeting calculated to arouse all the energies of my nature and direct them to a particular aim. Prophecy oftentimes shapes the event which it seems only to foretell. One shout of friendly confidence at the beginning of a race may nerve the runner with strength to win the goal.

"Happy he who, on accomplishing his round, is received with generous welcome by the same friends that cheered him at the start. Among such friends I stand. You listened with inspiring praise and augury to the immature efforts of the boy, and you now honor with this proud token of your approbation the achievements of the man.

"You nurtured me in the bud and early blossom of my life, and 'labored to make me full of growing.' If you have succeeded, 'the harvest is your own.'

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

"The Citizens of Philadelphia—Alike ready at the starting-post to cheer genius to exertion, and at the goal to reward it with a chaplet."

The newspaper reporter who described the occasion said,—

"It is not possible to convey by words any idea of the effect produced by this speech. His delivery was natural, forcible, and unaffected; and in many passages all who heard him were moved to tears. At the allusion to Colonel Swift, the Mayor of the city, the whole company rose, and, by a common impulse, gave six hearty cheers. Mr. Forrest sat down amidst the most vehement applause."

Several sentiments were read, and excellent speeches made in response. Morton McMichael ended his eloquent remarks thus:

"Before I sit down, however, allow me to call upon one whose genuine eloquence will atone for my tedious prattle. For this purpose I shall presently ask the company to join me in a health to one now near me, who, though young in years, has already secured to himself a ripe renown,—one who, in various departments of literature, has shown a vigorous and searching mind,—one who, in all the circumstances in which he has been placed, whether by prosperous or adverse fortune, has so acquitted himself, that in him

I allude, sir, to the author of 'Conrad of Naples,' a tragedy which, though written in the early years of nonage, bears upon it the unmistakable impress of rich and fruitful soil. Nor is this the only thing which my friend—for I am proud to call him so—has achieved in the difficult walks of the tragic drama. His 'Jack Cade' is a fine, spirited, stirring production, full of noble sentiments, clothed in striking language; and if it could only be so fortunate as to secure for the representative of its hero our own Spartacus, its success upon the stage would be as pre-eminent as its deserts are ample. As an essayist, too, this gentleman has made himself extensively known by the energy and brilliance of his style, the justness and solidity of his ideas, and the comprehensive range of his information. In years gone by, his contributions to the press of this city were everywhere recognized by their bold and manly eloquence; and in the gentle pursuits of the Muses he has exhibited a fervor of thought and a delicacy of expression seldom surpassed by any of our native poets. But I see, sir, that my praises are distasteful to him, and I therefore at once propose

"Robert T. Conrad—Distinguished alike by his success as a dramatist, his skill as a poet, and his rich, ready, and glowing eloquence."

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

"To those who are acquainted with the gentleman who has just taken his seat, no act of generosity or kindness coming from him can be wholly unexpected. I will not, therefore, plead, in extenuation of my inability to return a suitable acknowledgment, the surprise which his flattering reference to me, and the still more flattering manner in which that reference was received, have excited. I may, however, regret that the excess of his kindness deprives me of the power of speaking the gratitude which it inspires,—gratitude which is only rendered more profound by a consciousness that his praises are partial and undeserved. The excitement which, when tranquil, fans and kindles expression, when turbulent, overwhelms and extinguishes it. I feel this on the present occasion. The compliment is not only beyond my ambition, but beyond my strength. It comes to me as Jupiter did to the ambitious beauty of old, consuming while it embraces. I am not, however, so completely consumed in my blushes but that enough of me is left to say to the gentleman who has done me this honor, and to the company who joined in it, that I thank him and them most sincerely.

"Mr. McMichael has alluded to my former connection with the drama. The memory of friendship alone could have retained or revived a thought of my humble association, at an earlier period of my life, with the literature of the stage. To me the recollection of those studies will ever be grateful. Even the severest and most ascetic student can have no reason to regret the time spent in the contemplation of the rich stores of the British drama. He who has dwelt amid its glorious structures—who has had the wizard spell of its mighty masters thrown over his spirit—can never recur to it without enjoyment. Years may pass over him, and the current of life drift him far away from those pursuits, but, when recalled by an occasion like the present, he will come back to them with all his former feelings,—

He will find all its haunted paths familiar to him, and the flowers that bloom around those paths as fresh and as bright as when they first sprang forth at the call of genius. Its ancient and lofty halls will ring with the old and well-known voices, and its gorgeous and grotesque creations pass before him like things of life and substance, rather than the airy nothings of the imagination. If such be its ordinary magic, how potent is the spell when the vision becomes half real; when the leaves of the drama, like the written responses of the ancient oracles, flutter with supernatural life; when the figures start from the lifeless canvas and live and move and have their being in the mighty art of a Forrest! Who that has stepped within the charmed circle traced by his wand would sell the memory of its delight?

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

"The Press—The source and safeguard of social order, freedom, and refinement."

Mr. Chandler said,—

"In the concluding portion of the remarks of the gentleman who immediately preceded me, there was an allusion to my early acquaintance with the distinguished guest of the evening. The gentleman was right, sir. I can boast a long acquaintance with our guest, and an early appreciation of those talents which have so often delighted us, and which have led their possessor to his present eminence. I was among those who witnessed the scene which has been so graphically described by the gentleman himself, and among those who, having such ample means, prophesied that success which has been attained; and I now see around me many who are gratified this evening at the full evidence of their prophecy's fulfilment.

"For more than twenty years, sir, I have had occasion to mark the progress of our guest. I hope that the new relations into which that gentleman has entered will not make offensive the unfortunate extent of my reminiscence; it includes only a part of the years of my manhood, while it extends far down into his boyhood. It extends to a time when the first bud of his professional greatness began to blow; but even then what struck his admirers as a new development could not have been new to him,—an earlier love of the profession must have begotten some consciousness of latent talent,—and when has a love of a pursuit, and a consciousness of powers to prosecute it, failed to give hopes of success? Well, sir, step by step has that gentleman ascended the ladder, until he has reached the topmost round; and now, from the proud eminence which he has attained, he invites us to look back with him, and to glory in the means whereby he did ascend. Sir, he may glory in them; and we, as his friends, may join in the felicitation. Steady and rapid as has been that ascent, there is none to complain. The hundreds of his profession whom he has passed in his upward flight have cheered him on, and rejoiced in his success, as the deservings of talent and toil. No envious actor repines at his lower station, but all feel that their profession is honored in the achievements of its most successful member.

"But, sir, I feel that the object of this delightful festival is not to reward the brilliant achievements of a performer: proud as we may be, as Philadelphians, of his success, we have a higher motive; we feel, and would by these ceremonies express, that our townsman has successfully trod a path dangerous to all, and that green as is the chaplet which he has acquired as an actor, its beauty and redolence are derived from his virtues as a man. The credit of high professional excellence is awarded, and the man admired,—that in the case of our honored guest it has served to give exercise to the virtues of the citizen, the friend, and the relative.

"On another, a former occasion, I united with many citizens now here in a festival to a gentleman of eminence as an actor and of high credit as a dramatic author. I allude to Mr. Knowles. The hospitalities of the evening were acknowledged by the recipient, and were made most gratifying to those who extended them. But how different were they from those of this occasion! They lacked the interest of early associations, the sympathy of common citizenship: the fame we celebrated was great, but it was not our own. The occasion then was not like this; we come here not to be hospitable, nor to extend courtesy to a stranger. We come to express an appreciation of talent, our respects for faculties nobly but meekly borne, our gratitude for true Americanism exhibited abroad, and our appreciation of the gentleman at home,—to say to the world that even as a stranger they may applaud the actor in proportion to his deservings, because here at home, where he is fully known, the man is loved.

"Sir, alone and unaided has Forrest gained his present eminence, by the ascending power of talents and perseverance alone; the press has found time only to record his conquests of fame, and this festival is the spontaneous offering of admiring citizens to one of their number, who, in doing so much for himself, has reflected honor on them.

"The Philadelphia press, however, sir, will ever feel it a duty to find it a pleasure to encourage talents of a high order, and to promote their appreciation and reward. I speak the more confidently, as I stand among those of its directors who are concerned themselves in such a course, and who feel their responsibility in this respect to society."

Richard Penn Smith responded to a toast with much felicity. He said "he recalled with pleasure his intercourse with Mr. Forrest, for whom he wrote his tragedy entitled Caius Marius, but regretted that even the transcendent talents of his friend could not save his hero from perishing among the ruins of Carthage."

Mr. Smith said that "on such an occasion it would be unpardonable to overlook one who stood foremost in the ranks of our dramatic writers,—a gentleman who had distinguished himself by his various talents as an artist and an author, and whose dramatic works would ultimately secure him an enviable fame." He referred to Wm. Dunlap, of New York, and read the following letter:

"New York, December 11th, 1837.

"Gentlemen,—I received, on the evening of the 9th instant, your polite letter, doing me the honor of requesting my presence at a public dinner to be given to Edwin Forrest on the 15th instant. Nothing but the progress of winter, which I see around me, and feel within, could prevent my testifying in person how highly I appreciate the invitation of the committee and the gentleman to whom the public mark of esteem is to be given. Permit me to offer a toast:

"The American Actor, who, both in public and private life, upholds the honor of his country,—Edwin Forrest.

"William Dunlap."

"Mr. President," said Mr. Smith, "I will offer you a toast, which I have no doubt will be cordially responded to,—

"William Dunlap—The Nestor of the American Drama. May he live to see the edifice become what his foundation promised!"

The President called upon Mr. Charles Ingersoll, chairman of the Committee of Invitation, for a sentiment, to which Mr. Ingersoll responded:

"Mr. Chairman,—I have been desired by the committee to propose the health of a gentleman who is among us,—a friend of our immediate guest,—who has left his business in a sister city to comply with their invitation to give us his presence to-day,—a gentleman well known in the department of letters, as our guest upon your right is in that of the drama, as peculiarly and characteristically American. We are met to congratulate upon his successes a man radically American. The occasion is, therefore, appropriate to the cultivation of nationality,—a virtue which, though it is said to have grown into a weed in our political and individual relations, we have never been accused of fostering overmuch in literature and the arts; and he who cultivates it there deserves our signal approbation. Short of that illiberality which impedes the march of improvement, let us cherish a partiality, an honest, homely prejudice, for what is our own. To know ourselves is not the whole circle of wisdom; we must love ourselves too. Who sees an American audience crowd to an American play and turn from Shakspeare to call for Metamora and the Gladiator, and does not acknowledge in this fond prejudice the germ of excellence? Patriotism itself is a blind preference of our own earth; and shall there be no patriotism in letters? Take from Walter Scott his local prepossessions,—his Scotch kings, Scotch hills, Scotchmen, and the round of characters that he carries with him to all times and all places wherever his scene be laid,—deprive him, in a word, of his nationality, and what is he? Cut from his harp his own strings, and where is his music? There is no virtue without excess; such is human imperfection. Give us, then, nationality, which is but a phase of patriotic feeling; give us excess of it. Let us love the yet barren hills of our own literature, and we shall learn to make them wave and smile with harvests. Let our authors, like the gentleman we are about to drink to, strike their roots into their native soil and spread themselves to their native sun, and, like him, they will flourish. I propose

"A health and a hearty welcome to Mr. Leggett, whose pen, pointed by a genius that is his own, is directed by a heart that is all his country's."

Mr. Leggett said, that "to be complimented on such an occasion, and by such an assemblage, with a particular notice, was an honor to which he knew not how to reply. The courteous hospitality which made him a partaker with them in their festal ovation to his distinguished friend was an honor so far beyond his deserts as to call for his warmest acknowledgments. But 'the exchequer of the poor,' thanks alone, contained no coin which he dared offer in requital of the obligation they had conferred.

"It is often lamented" (Mr. L. remarked) "that the actor's art, though more impressive in its instant effects than painting or sculpture, stamps no enduring memorial of its excellence, and that its highest achievements soon fade from recollection, or survive only in its vague and traditionary report. This complaint did not seem to him altogether just. We best know how to estimate causes from the effects they produce. The consequences of actions are their most lasting and authentic chroniclers. What portrait, or what statue, could have conveyed to us so exalted a notion of the loveliness of Helen of Troy as the ten years' war provoked by her fatal charms? What 'storied urn or animated bust' could have perpetuated the memory of Roscius like the honors bestowed on him by the Roman Senate, the eulogium of Cicero, and the tears—more eloquent than words—shed by that immortal orator upon his grave?

"When I look around me, and behold this capacious hall thronged with men eminent for station, admired for talent, and valued for various private worth, and when I reflect on the object which convenes them here, I cannot admit the peculiar perishableness of the actor's fame, I cannot admit that he merely 'struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.' You have reared a monument to one actor, at least, gentlemen, which will long commemorate his greatness, and convey to your children, and your children's children, a lively impression of the genius and virtues which elicited so proud and enviable a tribute!"

Mr. Leggett returned his sincere thanks for the honor of inscribing his name on so enduring a record, and said he was proud to have it associated with the proceedings of that day.

In conclusion, he asked the company to fill their glasses to the following sentiment:

"Philadelphia—The Rome of the new world in this, that she has given a second Roscius to mankind, while another of her sons bids fair to win for her Athenian distinction by rivalling the fame of Æschylus."

Passing over the other speeches as of little interest now, it may be well to state that among the letters of excuse read was one from Washington Irving, regretting that it was not in his "power to join in this well-merited tribute to theatrical genius and private worth;" one from William Cullen Bryant, saying that it would give him "the greatest pleasure to unite in any testimony to the professional merit and personal worth of Mr. Forrest;" one from John P. Kennedy, who "would rejoice in such an opportunity to acknowledge his share of the indebtedness which the country at large owes to a gentleman whose fame in his profession has become common property;" and one from the celebrated player W. E. Burton, enclosing this happy toast: "The Stage of Life,—although cast into inferior parts at the commencement, industry and perseverance may eventually place us in the principal characters. May we be found perfect at the conclusion of the play!"

Songs and music were interspersed among the addresses, the famous vocalist Henry Russell singing several of his most exquisite ballads with unrivalled effect; and the occasion, altogether, was one of unclouded enjoyment in the passage and of lasting satisfaction in the retrospect.

Forrest now purchased a house in New York, and established his home there. He took a pew in the church of the Rev. Orville Dewey, the brilliant Unitarian divine, on whose pulpit ministrations he was for a series of years a regular attendant whenever he was in the city. The attraction of this extremely original and eloquent preacher had drawn together the most intellectual and cultivated congregation in New York; and his influence, silently and in many an unrecognized channel, has been diffusing itself ever since. The bold, rational, poetic, yet profoundly tender and devout style of thought and speech which characterized the sermons of Dewey had a great charm for Forrest, and they were never forgotten by him. He always believed in a God whose will is revealed in the laws of the material universe, and in the rightful order of human life, and he bowed in reverence at the thought of this mysterious Being, though often perplexed with doubts as to particular doctrines, and always a sworn enemy to religious dogmatism.

The next event which interrupted the regular movement of his professional and private life was the delivery of the oration at the celebration, in the city of New York, of the sixty-second anniversary of the Declaration of the Independence of the United States. The celebration was held under the auspices of the Democratic party. Party feeling was intense at the time, and to be the orator of the day on the Fourth of July, in the chief metropolis of the land, was an honor greatly coveted. The choice of Forrest showed the estimation in which he was held, while, on the other hand, his personal celebrity and magnetism lent unusual interest to the occasion. The popular desire to hear him had been fed and fanned to the highest pitch by the opposing newspaper comments, called out by the singular incident of a political party selecting a tragedian as their orator. The services were held in the old Broadway Tabernacle. Five thousand tickets of admission had been given out, but the multitude rushed resistlessly in, regardless of tickets, till the enormous building was stuffed to suffocation. The oration, in its sentiments, its style, its delivery, was extraordinarily successful. It was hailed with the most extravagant admiration and praise. In thought and feeling it was really creditable to its author, but its fervid rhetorical sentences and popular temper were so exactly suited to the tastes of those who heard it, that their estimate of its literary rank and philosophic value was stimulated to a level that must seem amusing to any sober judge of such things. The author's own opinion of it was modest enough, as appeared in the apologetic preface he prefixed to it when published. Yet it expressed his honest convictions and those of his auditors with so much picturesque vigor, and those convictions were so generous and so genuinely American, that the popularity of the oration was no matter of wonder. It was printed in full in numerous journals, and many thousands of copies in pamphlet form were distributed. Two or three extracts from it are appended, to serve as specimens of its quality and indications of the mind and heart of the author.

"Fellow-Citizens,—We are met this day to celebrate the most august event which ever constituted an epoch in the political annals of mankind. The ordinary occasions of public festivals and rejoicings lie at an infinite depth below that which convenes us here. We meet not in honor of a victory achieved on the crimson field of war; not to triumph in the acquisitions of rapine; nor to commemorate the accomplishment of a vain revolution which but substituted one dynasty of tyrants for another. No glittering display of military pomp and pride, no empty pageant of regal grandeur, allures us hither. We come not to daze our eyes with the lustre of a diadem, placed, with all its attributes of tremendous power, on the head of a being as weak, as blind, as mortal as ourselves. We come not to celebrate the birthday of a despot, but the birthday of a nation; not to bow down in senseless homage before a throne founded on the prostrate rights of man, but to stand erect in the conscious dignity of equal freedom and join our voices in the loud acclaim now swelling from the grateful hearts of fifteen millions of men in acknowledgment of the glorious charter of liberty our fathers this day proclaimed to the world.

"How simple, how sublime, is the occasion of our meeting! This vast assemblage is drawn together to solemnize the anniversary of an event which appeals not to their senses nor to their passions, but to their reason; to triumph at a victory, not of might, but of right; to rejoice in the establishment, not of physical dominion, but of an abstract proposition. We are met to celebrate the declaration of that inestimable principle which asserts the political equality of mankind. We are met in honor of the promulgation of that charter by which we are recognized as joint sovereigns of an empire of freemen; holding our sovereignty by a right indeed divine,—the immutable, eternal, irresistible right of self-evident truth. We are met, fellow-citizens, to commemorate the laying of the corner-stone of democratic liberty.

"Threescore years and two have now elapsed since our fathers ventured on the grand experiment of freedom. The nations of the earth heard with wonder the startling principle they asserted, and watched the progress of their enterprise with doubt and apprehension. The heart of the political philanthropist throbbed with anxiety for the result; the down-trodden victims of oppression scarce dared to lift their eyes in hope of a successful termination, while they knew that failure would more strongly rivet their chains; and the despots of the Old World, from their 'bad eminences,' gloomily looked on, aghast with rage and terror, and felt that a blow had been struck which loosened the foundation of their thrones.

"The event illustrates what ample cause there was for the prophetic tremors which thrilled to the soul of arbitrary power. Time has stamped the attestation of its signet on the success of the experiment, and the fabric then erected now stands on the strong basis of established truth, the mark and model of the world. The vicissitudes of threescore years, while they have shaken to the centre the artificial foundations of other governments, have but demonstrated the solidity of the simple and natural structure of democratic freedom. The lapse of time, while it dims the light of false systems, has continually augmented the brightness of that which glows with the inherent and eternal lustre of reason and justice. New stars, from year to year, emerging with perfect radiance in the western horizon, have increased the benignant splendor of that constellation which now shines the political guiding light of the world.

"How grand in their simplicity are the elementary propositions on which our edifice of freedom is erected! A few brief, self-evident axioms furnish the enduring basis of political institutions which harmoniously accomplish all the legitimate purposes of government to fifteen millions of people. The natural equality of man; the right of a majority to govern; their duty so to govern as to preserve inviolate the sacred obligations of equal justice, with no end in view but the protection of life, property, and social order, leaving opinion free as the wind which bloweth where it listeth: these are the plain, eternal principles on which our fathers reared that temple of true liberty beneath whose dome their children congregate this day to pour out their hearts in gratitude for the precious legacy. Yes! on the everlasting rock of truth the shrine is founded where we worship freedom; and

that shrine shall stand, unshaken by the beating surge of change, and only washed to purer whiteness by the deluge that overwhelms all other political fabrics.

"To the genius of Bacon the world is indebted for emancipating philosophy from the subtleties of the schoolmen, and placing her securely on the firm basis of ascertained elementary truth, thence to soar the loftiest flights on the unfailing pinions of induction and analogy. To the genius of Jefferson—to the comprehensive reach and fervid patriotism of his mind—we owe a more momentous obligation. What Bacon did for natural science, Jefferson did for political morals, that important branch of ethics which most directly affects the happiness of all mankind. He snatched the art of government from the hands that had enveloped it in sophisms and mysteries that it might be made an instrument to oppress the many for the advantage of the few. He stripped it of the jargon by which the human mind had been deluded into blind veneration for kings as the immediate vicegerents of God on earth; and proclaimed in words of eloquent truth, which thrilled conviction to every heart, those eternal self-evident first principles of justice and reason on which alone the fabric of government should be reared. He taught those 'truths of power in words immortal' you have this day heard; words which bear the spirit of great deeds; words which have sounded the death-dirge of tyranny to the remotest corners of the earth; which have roused a sense of right, a hatred of oppression, an intense yearning for democratic liberty, in myriads of myriads of human hearts; and which, reverberating through time like thunder through the sky, will,

"To Jefferson belongs exclusively and forever the high renown of having framed the glorious charter of American liberty. This was the grandest experiment ever undertaken in the history of man. But they that entered upon it were not afraid of new experiments, if founded on the immutable principles of right and approved by the sober convictions of reason. There were not wanting then, indeed, as there are not wanting now, pale counsellors to fear, who would have withheld them from the course they were pursuing, because it tended in a direction hitherto untrod. But they were not to be deterred by the shadowy doubts and timid suggestions of craven spirits, content to be lashed forever round the same circle of miserable expedients, perpetually trying anew the exploded shifts which had always proved lamentably inadequate before. To such men the very name of experiment is a sound of horror. It is a spell which conjures up gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire. They seem not to know that all that is valuable in life—that the acquisitions of learning, the discoveries of science, and the refinements of art—are the result of experiment. It was experiment that bestowed on Cadmus those keys of knowledge with which we unlock the treasure-houses of immortal mind. It was experiment that taught Bacon the futility of the Grecian philosophy, and led him to that heaven-scaling method of investigation and analysis on which science has safely climbed to the proud eminence where now she sits, dispensing her blessings on mankind. It was experiment that lifted Newton above the clouds and darkness of this visible diurnal sphere, enabling him to explore the sublime mechanism of the stars and weigh the planets in their eternal rounds. It was experiment that nerved the hand of Franklin to snatch the thunder from the armory of heaven. It was experiment that gave this hemisphere to the world. It was experiment that gave this continent to freedom.

"Let us not be afraid, then, to try experiments merely because they are new, nor lavish upon aged error the veneration due only to truth. Let us not be afraid to follow reason, however far she may diverge from the beaten path of opinion. All the inventions which embellish life, all the discoveries which enlarge the field of human happiness, are but various results of the bold experimental exercise of that distinguishing attribute of man. It was the exercise of reason that taught our sires those simple elements of freedom on which they founded their stupendous structure of empire. The result is now before mankind, not in the embryo form of doubtful experiment; not as the mere theory of visionary statesmen, or the mad project of hot-brained rebels: it is before them in the beautiful maturity of established fact, attested by sixty-two years of national experience, and witnessed throughout its progress by an admiring world! Where does the sun, in all his compass, shed his beams on a country freer, better, happier than this? Where does he behold more diffused prosperity, more active industry, more social harmony, more abiding faith, hope, and charity? Where are the foundations of private right more stable, or the limits of public order more inviolately observed? Where does labor go to his toil with an alerter step, or an erecter brow, effulgent with the heart-reflected light of conscious independence? Where does agriculture drive his team a-field with a more cheery spirit, in the certain assurance that the harvest is his own? Where does commerce launch more boldly her bark upon the deep, aware that she has to strive but with the tyranny of the elements, and not with the more appalling tyranny of man?

"The day is past forever when religion could have feared the consequences of freedom. In what other land do so many heaven-pointing spires attest the devotional habits of the people? In what other land is the altar more faithfully served, or its fires kept burning with a steadier lustre? Yet the temples in which we worship are not founded on the violated rights of conscience, but erected by willing hands; the creed we profess is not dictated by arbitrary power, but is the spontaneous homage of our hearts; and religion, viewing the prodigious concourse of her voluntary followers, has reason to bless the auspicious influence of democratic liberty and universal toleration. She has reason to exclaim, in the divine language of Milton, 'though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple! for who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing.' The soundness of this glorious text of religious liberty has now been approved to the world by the incontestable evidence of our national experience, since it is one of those 'columns of true majesty' on which our political fabric stands. Let bigotry and intolerance turn their lowering eyes to our bright example, and learn the happy, thrice happy consequences, both to politics and religion, from placing an insuperable bar to that incestuous union, from which, in other lands, such a direful brood of error's monstrous shapes have sprung.

"It is one of the admirable incidents of democracy, that it tends, with a constant influence, to equalize the external condition of man. Perfect equality, indeed, is not within the reach of human effort.

"Strength must ever have an advantage over weakness; sagacity over simplicity; wisdom over ignorance. This is according to the ordination of nature, and no institutions of man can repeal the decree. But the inequality of society is greater than the inequality of nature; because it has violated the first principle of justice, which nature herself has inscribed on the heart,—the equality, not of physical or intellectual condition, but of moral rights. Let us then hasten to retrace our steps wherein we have strayed from this golden rule of democratic government. This only is wanting to complete the measure of our national felicity.

"There is no room to fear that persuasion to this effect, though urged with all the power of logic and all the captivating arts of rhetoric, by lips more eloquent than those which address you now, will lead too suddenly to change. Great changes in social institutions, even of acknowledged errors, cannot be instantly accomplished without endangering those boundaries of private right which ought to be held inviolate and sacred. Hence it happily arises that the human mind entertains a strong reluctance to violent transitions, not only where the end is doubtful, but where it is clear as the light of day and beautiful as the face of truth; and it is only when the ills of society amount to tyrannous impositions that this aversion yields to a more powerful incentive of conduct. Then leaps the sword of revolution from its scabbard, and a passage to reformation is hewn out through blood. But how blest is our condition, that such a resort can never be needed! 'Peace on earth, and good will among men,' are the natural fruits of our political system. The gentle weapon of suffrage is adequate for all the purposes of freemen. From the armory of opinion we issue forth in coat of mail more impenetrable than ever cased the limbs of warrior on the field of sanguinary strife. Our panoply is of surest proof, for it is supplied by reason. Armed with the ballot, a better implement of warfare than sword of the 'icebrook's temper,' we fight the sure fight, relying with steadfast faith on the intelligence and virtue of the majority to decide the victory on the side of truth. And should error for awhile carry the field by his stratagems, his opponents, though defeated, are not destroyed: they rally again to the conflict, animated with the strong assurance of the ultimate prevalence of right.

"What bounds can the vision of the human mind descry to the spread of American greatness, if we but firmly adhere to those first principles of government, which have already enabled us, in the infancy of national existence, to vie with the proudest of the century-nurtured states of Europe? The Old World is cankered with the diseases of political senility and cramped by the long-worn fetters of tyrannous habit. But the empire of the West is in the bloom and freshness of being. Its heart is unseared by the prejudices of 'damned custom;' its intellect unclouded by the sophisms of ages. From its borders, kissed by the waves of the Atlantic, to

from the inland oceans of the North, to the sparkling surface of the tropical sea, rippled by breezes laden with the perfumes of eternal summer, our vast theatre of national achievement extends. What a course is here for the grand race of democratic liberty! Within these limits a hundred millions of fellow-beings may find ample room and verge enough to spread themselves and grow up to their natural eminence. With a salubrious clime to invigorate them with health, and a generous soil to nourish them with food; with the press—that grand embalmer not of the worthless integuments of mortality, but of the offsprings of immortal mind—to diffuse its vivifying and ennobling influences over them; with those admirable results of inventive genius to knit them together, by which space is deprived of its power to bar the progress of improvement and dissipate the current of social amity; with a political faith which acknowledges as its fundamental maxim the golden rule of Christian ethics, 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you;' with these means, and the constantly-increasing dignity of character which results from independence, what bounds can be set to the growth of American greatness? A hundred millions of happy people! A hundred millions of co-sovereigns, recognizing no law but the recorded will of a majority; no end of law but mutual and equal good; no superior but God alone!"

The keen admiration for Forrest prevalent among the democratic masses had already led to frequent suggestions of him as a candidate for political honors. His appointment as orator quickened the scent of friends and foes in this direction. In the public prints the thought of his nomination was advocated by some and satirized by others. The following paragraph gives a glimpse into the life of the time:

"There is talk of sending our tragedian to Washington, to act a real part on the political stage. By all means. Look at the play-writers in Parliament,—Sheridan, Bulwer, Shiel, Talfourd! Our friend Knowles is spoken of for a seat in the Commons. Why not Forrest? Down with all illiberality, we say, in such matters. Let Forrest have a seat in Congress. We like variety. And in these dog-days we like a little frolic and fun, and insist upon a thundering audience for the oration to begin with, and then we will clear the way for the Congressional election. But fair and softly: what are we to do with his friend Leggett? They cannot be separated: they must go together, like two figs in a jar. If Forrest has a seat in Congress, Leggett must have a stool near him. He can have a seat like a delegate, you know, from a Territory, having a voice but no vote. We can manage that. He can go from Coney Island without opposition, and it is essentially necessary that he should go. Suppose Forrest should break down in a speech on the Northeastern boundary, on the currency, on the Western land interests, or on any other great constitutional or legal question, he has only to turn round to his friend and say, in that remarkably silver voice of his, 'York, you are wanted!'"

Some scurrilous spirits charged that the oration delivered by Forrest was not his own composition, but was furnished by his friend Leggett. Leggett immediately published a point-blank denial, and affirmed that he had nothing whatever to do with it. In a short time the anticipated move was made; and, after careful consideration, it received the following reply:

"Philadelphia, Oct. 17th, 1838.

"To George Seaman, John A. Morrill and Edmund J. "Porter.

"Gentlemen,—The circular letter addressed to me by you as Chairman and Secretaries of the New York Democratic Republican Nominating Committee for nominating Representatives to Congress, reached me just as I was leaving the city, and I embrace the earliest moment of leisure since my arrival here to write you in reply.

"To the first question proposed by the Nominating Committee, I take great pleasure in returning an affirmative answer. The complete separation of the political affairs of the country from the private interests of trade, and especially from those of corporate banking institutions, I regard as a consummation greatly to be desired by every friend of popular government and of the equal rights of man. I have already, on a recent public occasion, expressed my sentiments on this subject, in general terms indeed, but with an earnestness which, in some measure, may have evinced how deeply-seated is my dread of the selfish and encroaching spirit of traffic, and of the aristocratic character and tendency of chartered monopolies, wielding, almost without responsibility, the fearful instrument of associated wealth. Not only do I approve most cordially the plan of the administration for an independent treasury, and the separation of Bank and State, but fervently do I hope that the same democratic principles of legislation may guide the action of every member of the confederacy until, at no distant day, the last link shall be sundered which now, in any portion of this republic, holds the general and equal good of the community in fatal subserviency to the sordid interests of a few.

"To the first branch of your second question, also, I respond in the affirmative; and so strong is my desire for the success of those measures in support of which the Democracy is now contending, that, although my professional engagements will call me, at the time of the election, to a distance from the city of New York, I shall not let a very considerable pecuniary sacrifice deter me from visiting it during the three days, that my ballot may swell the majority which, I trust, the Democracy of the metropolis of the Empire State will give on the side of those contested principles which seem to me to lie at the very foundation of popular liberty and to be essential to the permanency of our political fabric.

"But to your last inquiry,—while impressed with a lively sense of gratitude to those who have deemed my name worthy to be placed among the number from which you are to select persons to discharge the important duty of representatives to the national legislature,—I am constrained to offer you a negative reply.

"It was intimated to me, when I was honored with an invitation to pronounce an address before the Democracy of New York on the late Anniversary of our Independence, that my name might possibly be afterwards put in nomination on the list of candidates for Congress. While I consented, promptly and cheerfully, to deliver the oration, I at the same time explicitly disclaimed any ulterior views. The duties of legislation, I thought, could not be adequately discharged without more preparatory study and reflection than I had yet found time to bestow upon the subject, and I felt unwilling to owe to the misjudging partiality of my fellow-citizens an honor due to the merits of some worthier man, as sincere in the cause of Democracy as myself, and more able to do it service. My plans had also been arranged to pursue my present profession for a few years longer, during which time I hoped that the sedulous devotion of my leisure to political study and observation might render me more capable, should I hereafter be called to any public trust, of filling it with credit to myself and advantage to the community. These are the views which I expressed in reply to the committee by whom I was invited to deliver an oration on the Fourth of July; and by these views my mind continues to be swayed. I therefore, gratefully acknowledging the partial kindness of that estimate of my talents and character which placed my name before you, respectfully decline being a candidate for nomination.

"With much consideration,

"I have the honor to be, etc.,

"Edwin Forrest."

The "Broker of Bogota" was in many respects the most meritorious of all the prize-plays elicited by Forrest. It was written by Robert Montgomery Bird, but was of a wholly different order from his other tragedies. Brought out first in 1834 with marked success, it had been suffered to lie in neglect for some time, both because of the difficulty of finding satisfactory performers for the secondary parts in it, and because the piece, while especially admired by refined and cultivated judges, lacked those showy scenes and exciting points which attract the crowd. But it was ever a particular favorite with Forrest himself, who always delighted to play it, and always spoke of it with enthusiasm and with deep regret that it was so much too fine for his average audiences that he was obliged largely to lay it aside for noisier and more glaring performances with not one tithe of its merit. Having taken unwearied pains to perfect himself even to the very minutest details in the representation of the title-rôle, he now reproduced this play, and continued occasionally to repeat it, wherever he felt confident of an appreciative audience, up to his last year upon the stage. In the series of plays with which the name of Forrest is identified, this one is of so unique a character that we must try to give some distinctive idea of it; though it is difficult to do so.

The great passions of patriotism, liberty, ambition, revenge, public spirit and enterprise, with their imposing accompaniments of conflict and spectacle, are wholly absent from the piece. And yet it was written expressly for Forrest, and by one who knew him in his inmost peculiarities. And, despite the seeming strangeness of the assertion, he never appeared in a part better fitted to his true being. It is a purely domestic drama, a drama of individual and family affections and trials. Its delineation was a dissection of the human heart in its most common and familiar elements, only carried by circumstances to an extreme intensity.

Baptista Febro is an old man doing a large business in Bogota as a banker, conveyancer, money-lender, and legatee. He is widely known and respected for his ability and his scrupulous integrity; he is honest, frank, and humble to his employers; nevertheless imperative in his family, though just and kind. The two pre-eminent passions which dominate him are his personal honor and his parental affection. His daughter Leonor is devotedly attached to her father; but his son Ramon is a dissipated and ungrateful youth, whose vicious ways cause the old man the keenest anguish. Febro turns his son away and refuses him support, hoping by the consequent distress to lead him to repentance and reformation. His heart torn with anxiety and bleeding with wounded love, he watches for some signal of improvement or some overture for reconciliation from his prodigal boy; but in vain. Ramon meanwhile, who is more weak than wicked, is the helpless tool of an abandoned young noble, Caberero, whom he has taken for a friend. Caberero is a cool, dashing villain, utterly without conscience or fear, a brilliant and hardened scoundrel, who fairly illuminates with his lurid deviltry every scene in which he appears. Febro, learning these facts, sends for Caberero and has a personal interview with him. He first attempts to hire Caberero to give up his intimacy with Ramon and leave the young man in freedom to follow the promptings of his own better nature and the solicitations of his father. The contrast of the invulnerable insolence of the rascal, his shameless betrayal of his own unprincipled character and habits, with the earnest affection and simple sincerity and honorable concern which agitated the old man, was a moral lesson of the strongest kind, set in a dramatic picture of the finest art. Then, finding all efforts at persuasion useless, the scorn and indignation of the righteous man and the injured father gradually mount in his blood till they break out in a paralyzing explosion of gesture and speech. Towering in the grandeur of his own moral passion, and backed by that dynamic atmosphere, of public opinion which invisibly enspheres the good man pitted against the scoundrel, the broker makes the noble cower and flee before the storm of his angry contempt.

Ramon is slowly driven to desperation by his vices and their natural fruits. Caberero, malignantly resenting the denunciation and disdain of Febro, resolves to break into his vaults and rob him of his deposits. With diabolical ingenuity he entangles Ramon in the plot. They succeed, and arrange matters so that it seems as if the robbery were a pretence and a fraud on the part of the broker himself. He is brought before the viceroy, accused, and condemned. Deprived of his property, of his son, and, above all of his honor, the unhappy old man is almost crushed; yet his consciousness of virtue sustains him, and his bearing in the presence of the real culprits and his deceived judges, marked by every sign and attribute of conscious rectitude as he appeals to God for his final vindication, is a most impressive revelation of human nature in a scene of extraordinary trial. Meanwhile, the shame and grief of Febro are topped by a new calamity. Tidings are brought him that his daughter has eloped, and that he is left desolate indeed. But now Juanna, the betrothed of Ramon, who believes Febro incapable of the dishonor charged on him, meets the young man and denounces him for not defending his father. He tells her the facts of the case. Amazed at such baseness, her conscience treads their troth under foot, and she spurns the hideous criminal, and flies to the viceroy to vindicate Febro. There she finds the broker searching for his daughter. Her story is told and verified. The joy and gratitude and noble pride of the old man at the removal of the stigma from his name made an exquisite moral climax. Then it is also announced to him that his daughter is not lost, but is the honorable wife of the son of the viceroy. This delightful surprise breaks on his previous pleasure like a new morn risen on mid-noon. But, alas, his hapless and guilty Ramon,—where is he? What dreadful fate awaits him? At this moment a messenger enters with the statement that Ramon, in a revulsion of remorse and despair, had committed suicide by precipitating himself from a cliff. The sudden reversal of emotion in the already over-tried Febro is too much; it snaps the last chord. As if struck in the brain with an invisible but deadly blow, he gazes first wildly, then vacantly, around, stretches out his hands in a piteous gesture of supplication, staggers, and falls lifeless on the floor.

To those who thought of Forrest as heaving the most ponderous bar and fitted only for the rugged characters of the gymnastic school, his impersonation of the "Broker of Bogota" was a surprise. There were no sensational adjuncts in it, no roll of drum, gaudy procession, or drawing of swords,—nothing but the naked, simple drama of real life in its familiar course. But he never exhibited a more perfect piece of professional workmanship. His portraiture of the business dealings between the upright and courteous old broker and his varied customers,—the torturing struggle of his sense of justice and his parental affection,—the withering curse in which his pent agony burst on the sneering villain in whom he saw the spoiler of his boy,—the heart-rending wail with which he sorrowed over the sinfulness of his darling, "Would to Heaven he had never been born!"—the alternating crisis of suspense and fulfilment as the plot proceeds through gloom and gleam of crime and innocence to the last awful climax, where the mystery is transferred from time and human judgment through despair and death into eternity and to the unknown tribunal there,—all were represented with the almost microscopic fidelity of a pre-Raphaelite picture. Nothing seemed wanting, nothing seemed superfluous. Every tone, every glance, every gesture, every step, contributed towards shaping out the ideal. The performance bore the impress of a study as close and patient as that given to a household scene in the masterpieces of the Dutch school of painting. But to appreciate it as it deserved there was required an audience of psychologists, critically interested in the study of human nature, and curious as to its modes of individual manifestation. The general multitude must feel it to be rather dull and tiresome. It was in this respect like the "La Civile Morte" of Salvini, which, though perhaps his most absolutely perfect piece of acting in its minute truth, was yet felt by many to be tedious,—by the few to be most marvellous in its fascination.

One of the most striking examples of the skill and power of Forrest as an artist is given in the distinction he always made in his rendering of old age as seen respectively in Richelieu, in Lear, and in Febro. How does he translate the wily craft, the pitilessness, the mocking tenderness, of the first of these? He does it in so just and human a manner, with so little of that blunt and electrizing power which he displays in some other parts, that one who had not seen him in Lear would be disposed to believe this his greatest representation of age. The broken yet gigantic power of the old Lear in his fearful malediction of Goneril is overwhelming, and gives a new idea of the possible force of an aged and almost worn-out man. Lear is savagely straightforward and honest. In the first scenes he sweeps the spectators along with him in his passion and his rage. When maddened by the injuries of his unnatural children, he still is artful and clear. His very actions are unmistakable indications of his thoughts, and the last scene of the tragedy deserves to stand alone as a picture of suffering age in which past energy and passion spasmodically assert themselves. Let this be contrasted with the half-simulated decadence of Richelieu's powers. One feels from the very manner of the artist that this is but partially real,—that a moment of success may kindle into new life the man prostrated by bodily weakness. It comes, and for the moment he looms before us, as if recreated by the success of the intrigue which makes him again the genuine king of France. Very different from Richelieu and from Lear is the portrait Forrest gave of Febro. Here we have hale and honorable age, plain, sincere, outspoken. There is nothing of the jocularly-dissembling craft of the cardinal,—nothing of the ferocious passion of the discrowned monarch; but all of the self-respect and candid bearing of an honorable servant, the deep affection and authority of a father, and the impulsiveness of a strong, genuine man. It is a more modest histrionic picture, none the less true because less majestic.

The reader will be pleased to peruse the following genial critique on Forrest as the "Broker of Bogota" from the pen of an unnamed but reflective and tasteful writer, who first saw the play in Washington in 1864:

"We are glad that we have seen Forrest in the 'Broker of Bogota.' His rendering of this conception has given us a nearer and a warmer view of him. In this impersonation he puts off the armor of sternness and inflexibility, and lets us into the world of a heart in which there are green arbors clad with sweet flowers, where lingering sunlight wanders and happy birds sing. Right glad are we that we have seen this picture of Forrest, for it has an eloquent breath for our common humanity. It has given us a glimpse of his nature which long ago we should have rejoiced to see revealed, but whose richness we dreamed not was there. What a volume is a man's life! The heart's story,—always going on, always deepening the great drama of our being as it progresses to the mortal act,—this story, in a strong inveterate nature, writes in the public bearing and in all the features that falsehood as to his sensibilities which the dreadful pen of pride alone engraves. But we do not complain because the proud man in the conflict wears this covering of steel. In a mortal struggle with the world it is often his only safety. Heaven help the weak who falter and fall among the soft valleys of the heart when there are fastnesses of strength to scale! We are told of victims fatally poisoned by the breath of a flower whose fragrance floats at the base of a mountain where it strikes its roots. That lost one, suffocated by perfume, and that mountain, emblem of endurance and strength, are fit types of the thought we would convey. But then we do not love that any man who towers in influence above his fellows shall go thus to the grave!—that, like Byron, for example, he shall live in posterity shamed by a record which is a libel upon the romance of his soul, and written, too, by his own deathless genius. It is for this reason that we are glad to have seen Forrest as the 'Broker of Bogota.' Here he uplifts the veil, tears away the mask, and exhibits the tenderness which, like a deep vein of gold, is intermixed with the iron in the mine where his intellect sinks the shaft. Forrest, all of him, his virtues and his faults, is an American product. He is no common man. His power has a wider range than is given to that of the mere actor. This is evident from the fact that all over the nation he elicits the warmth of the partisan. His friends love him as men love a leader. His enemies, we think, do not understand him. If apology, therefore, be needed, thus we have given it for this somewhat personal criticism. We regard the Broker as Forrest's masterpiece. In it there are vehement power, flexibility, tenderness, sensibility, and all the light and shade which belong to our full humanity. The story of the play is the love of an honest, haughty, avaricious, fond old man for an erring son, whom he seeks to redeem from dissipation and bad friends. It is the love of the father for his boy, compared to which his coffers of gold become as dross in his sight,—always peeping with the eyes of a dove from the ark of the old man's heart, waiting for the deluge of evil passions to subside in his child, that the olive-branch may be wafted to him,—it is this love, sublime in forgiveness, ample for protection, and which at last breaks his heart, that is so painted here by the player as to make a dramatic movement of which Shakspeare might have been the author. And it is this which we have called the poem of Forrest's heart. A man of his intractable mould could not thus simulate. There is a limit to that sort of power which art cannot pass. In every detail this picture is so tenderly toned, so livingly brought from the canvas, that it must be a real revelation."

Another new part which Forrest in 1838 essayed with good success was that of Claude Melnotte, in the brilliant and popular play of "The Lady of Lyons," by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton. Forrest, never having seen the play performed, created his rôle afresh, and was the first actor who ever represented it in America. This drama, as is well known to the theatrical and reading world, is rich in eloquent language and in the varied movement and surprises of its plot, shifting from the still life of the peasant class to the pomp and clang of court and camp. The hero is the son of a poor gardener, who, in his humble garb and lot, has a soul full of poetry and aspiration. He falls in love with the proud Pauline Deschapelles, and writes to her impassioned verses, which she scorns as coming from one so much beneath her in station. Claude, half maddened, assumes the dress and rank of the Prince of Como, and wooes and wins and weds her. Then, revealing his true name and person, he enlists in the army, goes to the wars, fights his way to an illustrious renown and the baton of a marshal, returns, and wooes and wins his bride anew. The whole character and the motives of its situations differ most widely from all the parts in which Forrest had gained his celebrity as an actor; and his friends shook their heads with doubt when he proposed to attempt so novel and foreign a part. But his intelligence and art proved quite competent to the undertaking. The transformation he underwent, as shown by his picture when costumed for the character, is a surprising evidence of his true dramatic faculty. Instead of the weighty tragedian, whose Romanesque stateliness and volcanic fire filled out the ideals of Virginius, Brutus, Spartacus, he became a gay and ardent Frenchman, elastic with ambitious hope and love. The ponderous gave way to the romantic, declamation to conversational ease, monotone to graceful variety. The wooing breathed the music of sincerity, the tones of martial pride rang like a trumpet, and the gorgeous diction of the speeches never had better justice done to it. A judicious critic of that day said, "We were never before so astonished as at the real, genuine triumph of Forrest in Claude Melnotte,—a part we had imagined so utterly unsuited to his genius. He made many points of the most effective excellence; one, for example, was in reading over the letter of Bauseant twice, the first time in a rapid, half-conscious, half-trusting manner, the second time in a slow, careful, and soliloquizing style. Nothing could be more natural than this. But we cannot do justice to the acting, as a whole, in any words at our command. It was in conception thoroughly studied and yet easy, consistently wrought out, beautiful from beginning to end, from the tender enveloping of the form of Pauline in his cloak to the calm and respectful lifting from the table of the marriage settlement. The critic who can harshly ridicule such a sincere and remarkable performance must have in his nature something bitterly hostile to the actor." Yet it must be confessed, however well the art of Forrest overcame the difficulties of the rôle, it was not one really suited to the spontaneities of his nature. The satire of his prejudiced censors stung him more than the average approval gratified him, and the performance was year by year less frequently repeated, and finally was dropped. Still, there were in it many passages exemplifying the high mission of the drama to refresh, to teach, and to uplift those who submit themselves to its influence, when an eloquent interpreter with contagious tones breathes glorious sentiments in charming words. For instance, what a heavenly revelation and longing must be given by this speech to souls of imaginative tenderness chafing under the grim realities of care and hate and neglect!

And how, to any susceptible nature not yet deadened with prosaic conceit, veneered with supercilious knowingness, such a strain as this, livingly expressed on the stage, would reveal the superiority of faith and affection to the grinding strifes of material rivalry, and open that celestial world of the ideal wherein the pauper may be a millionaire, the drudge an emperor!

In such examples the speaker behind the footlights becomes a more thrilling preacher in a more genial pulpit, and teaches, for whoever will heed, the most precious lessons in our existence.

The tragedy of "Jack Cade, the Bondman of Kent," was written by Robert T. Conrad, who, in a prefatory note, acknowledges his "indebtedness to the judgment and taste of Mr. Forrest in its preparation for the stage," and ascribes "its flattering success at home and abroad to the eminent genius of that unrivalled tragedian." Conrad took the name of the despised rebel, cleared it of the odium and calumny with which four hundred years of fierce prejudice had encrusted it, and presented the notorious insurrectionary leader not as a vulgar demagogue and a brutal leveller, but as an avenging patriot, who felt the wrongs of the down-trodden masses and animated them to assert their rights. In place of Jack Cade the coarse and contemptible upstart pictured in Shakspeare, Conrad paints the portrait of Jack Cade the great English democrat of the fourteenth century. He held that there were good grounds in historic truth for this view; and, at all events, it was the only view of the character which his sympathies could embrace and shape to his purpose of producing a play at once suited to the personality of Forrest as an actor and constituting an impassioned argument for democracy. The tragedy is all on fire with democratic conviction and passion. It breathes throughout the most intense feeling of the wrongs and claims of the oppressed common people. It is a sort of battle-song of liberty, written in blood and set to music. If a poetic license, it was a generous one, thus to attempt to redeem from infamy the leader of a popular movement against the monstrous kingly, priestly, and baronial outrages under which the laboring classes had suffered so long, and attract the admiration of the people to his memory and his cause. Such was the feeling of Leggett, also, who longed to try his own hand at a drama on this very theme, but could never quite raise his literary courage to the point.

The main motive of the tragedy, then, is the exaltation of the sublimest of mortal aspirations,—the grand idea of popular liberty and equality—against unjust and cruel prerogative. It is a burning oration and poem of democracy. It is full of the horrible wrongs of the feudal system, the dreadful crime and ferocity of the past, but likewise penetrated and glorified with those thrilling sentiments of justice, freedom, and humanity which forecast the better ages yet to be. Thus, while European and retrospective in the revengeful temper that glows in its situations, it is American and prophetic in the moral and social coloring which irradiates its plot. And herein is indicated the secret of its immense popularity. The Jack Cade of Forrest stirred the great passions in the bosom of the people, swept the chords of their elementary sympathies with tempestuous and irresistible power. From the first to the last it secured and maintained a success similar to that which had previously crowned Metamora and Spartacus. The Lear of Forrest was the storm, and his Broker of Bogota the rainbow, of his passion. Othello was his tornado, which, pursuing a level line of desolation, had on either side an atmosphere of light and love that illumined its dark wings. Macbeth was his supernatural dream and entrancement of spasmodic action. Hamlet was his philosophic reverie and rambling in a charmed circle of the intellect. But Jack Cade was his incarnate tribuneship of the people, the blazing harangue of a later Rienzi inflamed by more frightful personal wrongs and inspired with a more desperate love of liberty. In it he was a sort of dramatic Demosthenes, rousing the cowardly and slumberous hosts of mankind to redeem themselves with their own right hands.

The opening of the play brings before us a vivid picture of the condition of the working-class, and the temper it had engendered; and at the same time skilfully foreshadows the character of the hero.

"The hovels of the bond discovered. Jack Straw, Dick Pembroke, Roger Sutton (bondmen), dressed coarsely, with implements of labor, as if going to their work.

The good democratic priest, Lacy, whose loving care and instructions had largely moulded the mind of young Cade, says to the poor yeoman,—

The wretched hut of the lonely widow Cade is shown. She soliloquizes,—

She sighs for the return of her boy, who, when he fled from his tyrants to seek a land where his heart might throb without the leave of a master, had promised that he would come back some day in honor to avenge her and to redeem his class. Meanwhile, he has become a stalwart and experienced man. Under the name of Aylmere, he has won distinction in the armies of Italy, and delved in the lore of the schools, but never lost sight of his origin and his early hatred of the oppressors of the poor. He now, disguised, enters the cot of his mother with his wife, Mariamne, and their child. He is unrecognized. Lacy, with fatherly pride, tells him of the brave boy missed so long, and proceeds to describe how he had behaved when Lord Say had insulted his mother:

Here Aylmere, with sudden impulse, springs up, throws off his cloak, and cries, with an exulting laugh,—

This affecting scene was made to thrill every beholder to tears. As the poor widow sank fainting under the shock of surprise and joy, and her son knelt at her feet, all his own mother used to rise in his heart, and his acting was no simulation, but the breathing truth itself.

The ruminations of the exiled Cade in Italy, whose altars, unwarmed for a thousand years, were then lit up with the rekindled fires of free-born Rome,—how he remembered his pale mother, and burned to redeem his brethren, the herded and toil-worn bondmen,—this was described in a speech of amazing eloquence, whose delivery was so imaginative and natural in its free fervor that the images seemed visibly presented while the tones palpitated among the pulses of their hearers: