'There are no Gods in heaven,'
which bursts from him when he hears of the murder of his wife and child by the Roman cohorts. Mr. Forrest has made such a hit as has not been made since the memorable 1814, when Edmund Kean burst on England in Shylock. America may well feel proud of him; for though he is not, strictly speaking, what is called a classical actor, yet he has all the energy, all the indomitable love of freedom that characterizes the transatlantic world. We say this because there were many republican allusions in the play where the man spoke out quite as much as the actor, if not more. Having seen him in Spartacus, we no longer wonder at his having electrified the New World. A man better fitted by nature and art to sustain such a character, and a character better fitted to turn the heads of a nation which was the other day in arms against England, never appeared on the boards of a theatre. At the fall of the curtain he received such a tempest of approbation as we have not witnessed for years."
The Morning Advertiser said,—
"When to the facts of a new play and a new actor is superadded the circumstance that both the author and the player of the new tragedy are Americans, and the first who ever tempted the intellectual taste of the British public by a representation on the English stage, the crowds which last night surrounded the doors long before they were thrown open are easily accounted for. The applause which Mr. Forrest received on his entrée must have been very cheering to that gentleman. He possesses a countenance well marked and classical; his figure, a model for stage effect, with 'thew and sinew' to boot. His enunciation, which we had anticipated to be characterized by some degree of that patois which distinguishes most Americans, even the best educated, was almost perfect 'to the last recorded syllable,' and fell like music on the ears. We here especially point to the less declamatory passages of the drama; in those portions of it where he threw his whole power of body and soul into the whirlwind, as it were, of his fury, his display of physical strength was prodigious, without 'o'erstepping the modesty of nature.' The inflections of his voice frequently reminded one of Kean in his healthiest days, yet there did not appear the manner of a copyist. He was crowned with loud and unanimous plaudits at least a dozen times during the representation."
The Court Journal gave its judgment thus:
"This chief of American performers is most liberally endowed by nature with all the finest qualities for an actor. With a most graceful and symmetrical person, of more than the ordinary stature, he has a face capable of the sternest as of the nicest delineations of passion, and a voice of deep and earnest power. We have never witnessed a presence more noble and commanding,—one that, at the first moment, challenged greater respect, we may write, admiration. 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; he looked and moved as if he could have cut down a whole cohort, and died like a Hercules. The reception of Mr. Forrest was most cordial; and the applause bestowed upon him throughout the play unbounded. At the conclusion of the tragedy he was called for, and most rapturously greeted."
The Times described the figure, face, and voice of the actor, gave a long abstract of the play, and said,—
"He played with his whole heart, and seemed to be so strongly imbued with the part that every tone and gesture were perfectly natural, and full of that fire and spirit which, engendered by true feeling, carry an audience along with the performer. He made a powerful impression on the audience, and must be regarded as an able performer who to very considerable skill in his profession adds the attraction of a somewhat novel and much more spirited style of playing than any other tragic actor now on our stage."
The following extract is from the Atlas:
"If we were to estimate Mr. Forrest's merits by his performance of the Gladiator, we should, probably, underrate, or, perhaps, mistake the true character of his genius. The very qualities which render him supreme in such a part would, if he possessed no other requisites, unfit him for those loftier conceptions that constitute the highest efforts of the stage. It would be impossible to produce a more powerful performance, or one in all respects more just and complete, than his representation of the moody savage Thracian. But nature has given him peculiar advantages which harmonize with the demands of the part, and which, in almost any other character in the range of tragedy, would either encumber the delineation or be of no avail. His figure is cast in the proportions of the Farnese Hercules. The development of the muscles, indeed, rather exceeds the ideal of strength, and, in its excess, the beauty of symmetrical power is in some degree sacrificed. His head and neck are perfect models of grandeur in the order to which they belong. His features are boldly marked, full of energy and expression, and, although not capable of much variety, they possess a remarkable tone of mental vigor. His voice is rich and deep, and susceptible of extraordinary transitions, which he employs somewhat too frequently as the transitions of feeling pass over his spirit. The best way, perhaps, of describing its varieties is to say that it reminded us occasionally of Kean, Vandenhoff, and Wallack, but not as they would be recalled by one who, in the dearth of his own resources, imitated them for convenience, but by one in whom such resemblances are natural and unpremeditated. Mr. Forrest's action is bold, unconscious, and diversified; and the predominant sentiment it inspires is that of athletic grace. In the part of Spartacus all these characteristics were brought out in the most favorable points of view; and the performance, exhausting from its length and its internal force, was sustained to the close with undiminished power. There is certainly no actor on the English stage who could have played it with a tithe of Mr. Forrest's ability."