Forrest's art was of a cruder and more robust sort than Edwin Booth's who, by the way, was named after him. He was greatest in characters demanding a great physique, a commanding presence and—yes, let us say it!—a loud voice. Coriolanus, Spartacus, Virginius—those were his roles, and no man ever looked more imposing in a Roman toga.
Forrest, during his English engagement of 1845, and on other occasions, shared the honors with a remarkable actress, Charlotte Cushman. And perhaps none ever had a more astonishing career. Born in Boston in 1816, her youth was one of poverty, for her father died while she was very young, leaving no property. The girl was remarkably bright, and soon developed a contralto voice of unusual richness and compass. She sang in a choir and assisted to support the family from the age of twelve, securing such musical instruction as she could. In 1834, she made her first appearance in opera and scored a tremendous success. A splendid career seemed opening before her, when suddenly, a few months later, her voice, strained by the soprano parts which had been, assigned her, failed completely.
Her friends advised her to become an actress, and she went diligently to work, not allowing herself to despond over that first great disappointment. For the next seven years, she worked faithfully learning the new profession from the very bottom. "I became aware," she said, "that one could never sail a ship by entering at the cabin windows; he must serve and learn his trade before the mast." In that way she learned hers, playing minor parts, doing cheerfully the drudgery of her profession, refusing all offers for more important work until she felt herself thoroughly capable of undertaking it. One would wish that her example might be taken to heart by her sisters of the present day.
At last her chance came. In 1842, William C. Macready, the great English tragedian, visited the United States, and in Charlotte Cushman he found a splendid support. Indeed, she divided the honors with him. A year later, she went to London and won immense applause. "Since the first appearance of Edmund Keane, in 1814," said a London journal, in speaking of her first night as "Bianca," "never has there been such a début on the stage of an English theatre." For eighty-four nights she appeared with Edwin Forrest. "All my successes put together," she wrote to her mother, "would not come near my success in London."
In the winter of 1845 she tried one of the most daring experiments ever made by an actress, appearing as Romeo to her sister, Susan Cushman's, Juliet. It was a notable success. Her deep contralto voice made it possible for her to give a complete illusion of the young and handsome lover. She played other male characters in after years, notably Hamlet, and created a deep impression in them. Her sister was a lovely girl, and an accomplished actress, and their "Romeo and Juliet" ran for two hundred nights. Susan Cushman would no doubt also have won high fame as an actress, but she soon retired from the stage, marrying the distinguished chemist and author, James Sheridan Muspratt, of Liverpool.
Charlotte Cushman returned to America in the fall of 1849, and was received with acclamation. There was never any question, after that, of her position as the greatest English-speaking actress, and that position she easily maintained until her death. She gathered wealth as well as fame, built a villa at Newport, and in 1863 earned nearly nine thousand dollars for the United States Sanitary Commission by benefit performances. Energetic, resolute, faithful, impatient of any achievement but the highest, she seemed the very embodiment of many of Shakespeare's greatest creations. She possessed a strange, and weird genius, akin, in some respects, to that of Edwin Booth, and her delineation of the sublime, the beautiful, the terrible has never been surpassed. A noble interpreter of noble minds, Charlotte Cushman stands for the supreme achievement of the actress.
What Booth and Forrest were to tragedy, William J. Florence was to comedy. Indeed, he may be said to have gone farther than either Booth or Forrest, for he founded a school and gave to the stage the chivalrous, light-hearted and lucky Irishman, who has since become so familiar to the drama, however rare he may be outside the theatre.
Florence was born in Albany, New York, in 1831. His family name was Conlin, from which it will be seen that he came naturally by his insight into Irish character; but he changed this name when he went upon the stage to the more romantic and euphonious one of Florence. He gave evidence of possessing unusual dramatic talent while still a boy, and made his début on the regular stage at the age of eighteen. He had the usual hardships of the young actor, playing in various stock companies without attracting especial attention, and finally, in 1853, marrying Malvina Pray, herself an actress of considerable ability.
It was at this time that Florence began to find his field in the delineation of Irish and Yankee characters, his wife appearing with him, and together they won a wide popularity. Florence wrote some plays and a number of sprightly songs, which his wife sang inimitably. He himself improved steadily in his acting, and, especially in the gentle humor and melting pathos with which he clothed his characters, stood quite alone. A tour through England added to his fame, and his songs were soon being sung and whistled in the streets pretty generally wherever the English tongue was spoken. One song in particular, called "Bobbing Around," had immense popularity.
But Florence was more than a mere song-writer Irish comedian. In his later years he proved himself to be an actor of high attainments and no one who ever witnessed a performance of "The Rivals," with Jefferson as Bob Acres, and Florence as Sir Lucius O'Trigger, will ever forget his finished and glowing impersonation.