Edwin Forrest

“ For forty years James Oakes had been the sworn bosom friend of Edwin Forrest. He regarded him with an admiration and love romantic if not idolatrous. He had, as he said, known him as youth, as man, in all hours, all fortunes; had summered him and wintered him, and for nigh half a century held him locked in the core of his heart, which he opened every day to look in on him there. He resembled him in physical development, in bearing, in unconscious tricks of manner, in tastes and habits. ”

“ Edwin Forrest has good claims for a biography. The world, it has been said, is annually inundated with an intolerable flood of lives of nobodies. So much the stronger motive, then, for presenting the life of one who was an emphatic somebody. There is no more wholesome or more fascinating exercise for our faculties than in a wise and liberal spirit to contemplate the career of a gifted and conspicuous person who has lived largely and deeply and shown bold and exalted qualities. ”

“ Not they who happened to be born here, but they who have the spirit of America, are true Americans.
The father and mother of Edwin Forrest were thoroughly Americanized, and taught him none of the special peculiarities of his Scottish or German ancestry. So far as his conscious training was concerned, in language, religion, social habits, he grew up the same as if his parentage had for repeated generations been American. ”

“ The priesthood and kingship of man are universal in kind, but endlessly varied in degree, no two men on earth nor no two angels in heaven having such a monotonous uniformity that they cannot be discriminated. Each one has an original stamp and relish of native personality. The law of infinite perfection, even in liberty itself, is perfect subordination in the infinite degrees of superiority.
These opposed and balancing truths found a magnificent impersonation on the stage in Edwin Forrest, and made him pre-eminently the representative American actor. ”

“ To account for a career like that of Edwin Forrest it is necessary to admit that he must have embodied force, intellect, passion, culture, and perseverance in a very uncommon degree. And in perceiving and honoring the general evidences of this the great average of the people are better judges, fairer critics, than any special classes or cliques can be ”

“ Kean himself, at a public dinner given him in Philadelphia on his return thither from Albany, generously said that he had met one actor in this country, a young man named Edwin Forrest, who gave proofs of a decided genius for his profession, and who would, as he believed, rise to great eminence. This kind act on the part of the veteran was reported to the novice, and sank gratefully into his heart. To be praised by one we admire is such a delight to the affections and such a spur to endeavor that it is a pity the successful are not more ready to give it to the aspiring. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her native delicacy of mind and refinement of manners enchanted those who hoped for some such influence to be exerted in softening the rough vigor and democratic downrightness of the man. Domestic discord came too soon, however, and in an evil hour for himself, in an evil hour for his art and for the struggling drama in America, Edwin Forrest threw open the doors of his home to the scrutiny of the world, and appealed to the courts to remove the skeleton which was hidden in his closet. ”

“ It is certainly not impossible; so much do circumstances, companions, aims, duties, the daily routine of life, contribute to make us what we are. The essential germ or monad of the personality is unextinguishable, but its development may be amazingly fostered and guided or twisted and stunted. The coin of manhood remains what it is in itself, but its image and superscription are determined by the mould and die with which it is struck.
Edwin had a sweet, expressive, vigorous voice, with natural accent and inflection, free from the common mechanical mannerisms. ”

“ One of the asylums which has attracted more attention than many others is the Edwin Forrest Home for Retired Actors.
It was founded under the direction of Edwin Forrest, the famous tragedian, who by his will, dated April 5, 1866, bequeathed to his executors, James Oakes of Boston, James Lawson of New York, and David Dougherty of Philadelphia, all his property, with the exception of annuities to his sisters and some personal legacies, in trust for an institution “which they will call the Edwin Forrest Home.” ”

“ William Forrest and Rebecca Lauman were married in 1795, [Pg 36] he being at that time thirty-seven years old, she thirty-two. Seven children were born to them in succession at quite regular intervals of two years. The nameless boy who preceded Edwin in 1804 died at birth. The remaining six were all baptized in the Episcopal Church of Saint Paul, on Third Street, in Philadelphia, by the Rev. Doctor Pilmore, on the same day, November 13, 1813. The names of these six children, in the order of their birth, were Lorman, Henrietta, William, Caroline, Edwin, and Eleanora. ”

“ As an actor, Mr. Forrest is fervent, passionate, and active: there is no child's play in whatever he does; but in the most serious, as in the slightest development of feeling, he puts his whole heart into the matter, and carries us away with him in either the subtlety or the strength of his emotion. With powers evidently enabling him to outroar a whirlwind, he is never extravagant,—he is never of 'Ercles' vein; his passion is always from the heart, and never from the lungs. His last two scenes were splendidly acted, from the strength, the self-abandonment of the performer ”

“ Forrest is the most promising tragedian that has appeared in our days. He has, evidently, rare intellectual endowments; a noble and commanding presence; a countenance full of varying expression; a voice mellow, flexible, and in its undertones exquisitely tender, and a discretion that never fails him. If any one can revive the half-extinct taste for the drama, he is the man. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 393] 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. ”

“ He appeared on the stage in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. For Edwin Forrest he wrote “Metamora,” “The Ancient Briton,” and “Fauntleroy”; and among other plays he published “La Roque,” “The Demoniac,” and “Tancred.” ”

“ The whole weight of the piece rests upon him alone, and nobly does he sustain it. His action is easy, graceful, and varied; and his declamation is perfectly free from the usual stage chant, catchings, and points. Indeed, nature alone seems to have been his only model."
The "Sun" of the same date said,—
"Mr. Edwin Forrest, who has long held the first rank as a tragic actor in America, made his first appearance here last night in a new drama, also of American growth, entitled the Gladiator. [Pg 300] The acting of Mr. ”

“ Still further, Forrest has a claim for posthumous justice as one who was wronged in important particulars of his life and misjudged in essential elements of his character. Outraged, as he conceived, in the sanctities of his manhood, he bore the obloquy for years with outward silence, but with an inner resentment that rankled to his very soul. Endowed with a tender and expansive heart, cultivated taste, and a scrupulous sense of justice, shrinking sensitively from any stain on his honor, he was in many circles considered a selfish despot addicted to the most unprincipled practices. ”

“ There was fitness and significance in such a genius as his maturing and pouring itself out under the shade of the Western woods, rising up amid their grandeur clear and simple as a spring, till, fed and strengthened, it leaped forth fresh and thundering as a torrent.
In characterizing Forrest as a tragedian by the epithet American, it is necessary that we should understand what is meant by the word in such a connection. We mean that he was an intense ingrained democrat. Democracy asserts the superiority of man to his accidents. ”

“ Its 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! ”

“ What can be more genuinely sensational than Niagara, Mont Blanc, the earthquake, the tempest, the forked flash of the lightning, the crashing roll of the thunder, the crouch of the tiger, the dart of the anaconda, the shriek of the swooping eagle, the prance of the war-horse in his proud pomp? And the attributes of all these belong to man, with additions of nameless grandeur, terror, and beauty beside, making him an incarnate representative of God on the earth. To see Forrest in Lear, or Salvini in Saul, is to feel this. ”

“ Forrest had an aversion to society, a passion for individuals, and an intense ambition to excel in his art, which he loved for itself. It was quite natural that the friendship of men so unlike, to say nothing of their great disparity in years, should be streaked with coolnesses and gradually cease. ”

“ No actor placed greater stress on a fitting costume than Forrest. He knew its subtle influences as well as its more obvious effects. The more vital unity and sensitiveness we have, the more important each adjunct to our personality becomes. A man who is a sloppy mess of fragments is not influenced much by anything, and in return does not much influence anything; but to a man whose body and soul form, as it were, one vascular piece, the action and reaction between him and everything with which he is in close relation is of great consequence. ”

“ Forrest saw the design and inwardly resented it, though he said nothing. He followed the wise course of trying to make the best he could of the part assigned him. He made a careful study of the peculiarities of age, in feature, in gait, in voice. He would often sit in places of public resort and critically watch every old man who came in or went out. Many a time when he had chanced to discover some striking example of power and dignity or of weakness and decrepitude in an old man he would follow him in the street and mentally imitate him, reproducing and fixing what he saw. ”

“ Forrest as Spartacus was throughout admirable. His very figure and voice were in his favor, the one being strongly muscular, the other replete with a rough music befitting one who in his youth has dwelt, a free barbarian, among the mountains. He electrified his audience; indeed, we have not heard more enthusiastic bursts of applause shake the walls of an English theatre since Othello expired with poor Kean. The great recommendations of Mr. Forrest as a tragedian we take to be strong passion, and equally strong judgment. In the whirlwind of his emotions he never loses sight of self-control. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of us are but as collections of fragments pieced together, so full of strictures and contractions that no vibratory impact or undulation can circulate freely in us. But Forrest had this open and poised unity in such a degree that when at ease he swayed on his centre like a mountain on a pivot, and when volition put rigidity into his muscles the centre was solidaire with the periphery. ”

“ 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. ”