In response to the invitation or challenge to appear in some of the great Shakspearean rôles, Forrest appeared many nights successively in Othello, Macbeth, and Lear, and in them all was crowned with most decisive and flattering triumphs. The praise of him by the press was generous, and its chorus scarcely broken by the few dissenting voices, whose tone plainly betrayed an animus of personal hostility. A few examples of the newspaper notices may fitly be cited,—enough to give a fair idea of the general impression he made.
The Globe, of October 25th:
"Mr. Forrest selected as his second character the fiery Othello, 'who loved not wisely, but too well.' There was something nobly daring in this flight, so soon, too, after he whose voice still dwells in our ears had passed from among us. To essay before an English audience any character in which Edmund Kean was remembered was itself no trifling indication of that self-confidence which, when necessary, true genius can manifest. To make that attempt in Othello was indeed daring. And nobly, we feel proud to say, did the performance bear out the promise. In the Senate scene his colloquial voice told well in the celebrated address to the Seniors of Venice. He did not speak as if the future evils of his life had even then cast their shadows upon him. The calm equability of the triumphant general and successful lover pervaded his performance throughout the first two acts, with the exception of the scene of the drunken brawl in the second, where he first gave token of the fiery elements within him. The third act was a splendid presentment throughout. He had evidently studied the character with the judgment of a scholar, 'and a ripe and good one:' each shade of the jealous character of the easy Moor, from the first faint guessings at his tempter's meaning to the full conviction of his wife's dishonesty, was brought out with the touch of a master-hand, and embodied with a skill equalling that of any actor whom we have seen, and far, very far superior to the manner in which any other of our living performers could attempt it. This third act alone would have placed Mr. Forrest in the foremost rank of his profession had he never done anything else; and so his kindling audience seemed to feel, as much in the deep watching silence of their attention as in the tremendous plaudits which hailed what on the stage are technically called 'the points' he made.
"In the two succeeding acts he was equally great in the passages which called forth the burning passions of his fiery soul; but we shall not at present particularize; where all was good it would be difficult, and we have already nearly run through the dictionary of panegyric. In accordance with a burst of applause such as seldom follows the fall of the curtain, Othello was announced for repetition on Wednesday and Friday."
The commendation of the London Sun was still stronger:
"Mr. Forrest last night made his appearance here in the arduous character of Othello. The experiment was a bold one, but was completely successful. We entertain a vivid recollection of Kean in this part; we saw his Moor when the great actor was in the meridian vigor of his powers, and also when he was in his decline and could do justice only to the more subdued and pathetic parts of the character; and even with these recollections on our mind, we feel ourselves justified in saying that Mr. Forrest's Othello, if here and there inferior in execution to Kean's, was in conception far superior. There is an elevation of thought and sentiment,—a poetic grandeur,—a picturesqueness, if we may use such an expression, in Mr. Forrest's notion of the character, which Kean could never reach. The one could give electrical effect to all its more obvious points, turn to admirable account all that lay on its surface; the other sounds its depths,—turns it inside out,—apprehends it in a learned and imaginative spirit, and shows us not merely the fiery, generous warrior, the creature of impulse, but the high-toned, chivalrous Moor; lofty and dignified in his bearing, and intellectual in his nature,—such a Moor, in short, as we read of in the old Spanish chronicles of Granada,—and who perpetrates an act of murder not so much from the headstrong, animal promptings of revenge, as from an idea that he is offering up a solemn and inevitable sacrifice to justice. In the earlier portion of the character Mr. Forrest was rather too drawling and measured in his delivery; his address to the Senators was judicious, but not quite familiar enough; it should have been more colloquial. It was evident, however, that throughout this scene the actor was laboring under constraint; he had yet to establish himself with his audience, and was afraid of committing himself prematurely. Henceforth he may dismiss this apprehension; for he has proved that he is, beyond all question, the first tragedian of the age.... We have spoken of this gentleman's Othello in high terms of praise, but have not commended it beyond its deserts. In manly and unaffected vigor; in terrific force of passion, where such a display is requisite; but, above all, in heartfelt tenderness, it is fully equal to Kean's Othello; in sustained dignity, and in the absence of all stage-trick and undue gesticulation, it is superior. Perhaps here and there it was a little too elaborate; but this is a trivial blemish, which practice will soon remedy. On the whole, Mr. 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."
The Carlton Chronicle said,—
"It is impossible that any actor could, in person, bearing, action, and utterance, better fulfil your fair-ideal of the noble Moor. All the passages of the part evincing Will and Power are delivered after a manner to leave the satisfied listener no faculty except that of admiration. His bursts of passion are terrifically grand. There is no grimace,—no exaggeration. They are terrible in their downright earnestness and apparent truth. Nothing could be more heart-thrilling than the noble rage with which he delivered the well-known passage,—
'I had rather be a toad,