Never! never! never! never! never!'
will ever forget the anguish depicted on Mr. Forrest's features, or the heart-piercing melancholy of his tones. Mr. Forrest evinced, throughout, a fine conception of the character. He did not surprise us by a burst of genius now and then. His performance was equable,—it was distinguished in every part by deep and intense feeling. The curse levelled against Goneril (one of the most fearful passages ever penned by man) was given with awful force. The last member of the speech—
'That she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!'—
was poured forth with an unrestrained but natural energy that acted like an electric shock on the audience; a momentary silence succeeded it; but immediately afterwards a simultaneous burst of applause attested the great triumph of the actor. His mad-scenes, when, delighting in a crown and sceptre of straw, Lear proclaims himself 'every inch a king,' were admirably conceived, and no less admirably acted. There was no straining after effect,—there was no grimacery. We saw before us the 'poor, weak, and despised old man,'—the 'more sinned against than sinning,'—reduced to a state of second childhood, and paying the too severe penalty which his folly and his credulity, in listening to the hyperboles of his elder daughters and rejecting the true filial affection of his youngest and once his most beloved child, exacted from him."
It may be well, also, to quote what was said by the "London Times" of November 5th:
"The part of Lear is one which many otherwise eminent actors have found above, or at least unsuited to, their capacities. Mr. Forrest played it decidedly better than anything he has as yet essayed in this country. His conception of the character is accurate, and his execution was uncommonly powerful and effective. If it be, as it cannot be disputed that it is, a test of an actor's skill that he is able to rivet the attention of the audience, and so to engage their thoughts and sympathies that they have not leisure even to applaud on the instant, he may be said to have succeeded most completely last night. From the beginning of the play to the end, it was obvious that he exercised this power over the spectators. While he was speaking, the most profound silence prevailed, and it was not until he had concluded that the delight of the audience vented itself in loud applause. This was particularly remarkable in his delivery of Lear's curse upon his daughters, the effect of which was more powerful than anything that has lately been done on the stage. It is not, however, upon particular passages that the excellence of the performance depended; its great merit was that it was a whole, complete and finished. The spirit in which it began was equally sustained throughout, and, as a delineation of character and passion, it was natural, true, and vigorous, in a very remarkable degree. The mad-scenes were admirably played; and the last painful scene, so painful that it might well be dispensed with, was given with considerable power. The great accuracy and fidelity with which the decrepitude of the aged monarch was portrayed was not among the least meritorious parts of the performance. The palsied head and quivering limbs were so correctly given as to prove that the actor's attention has been sedulously devoted to the attempt to make the performance as perfect as possible. A striking proof of his sense of the propriety of keeping up the illusion he had created was manifested in his reappearance, in obedience to the loud and general call of the audience, at the end of the tragedy. He came on, preserving the same tottering gait which he had maintained throughout, and bowed his thanks as much in the guise of Lear as he had acted in the drama. This would have been almost ridiculous in any but a very skilful actor: in him it served to prevent too sudden a dissipation of the dramatic illusion."
The critical notices of the Macbeth of Forrest were of the same average as the foregoing estimates of his other parts, though the faults pointed out were generally of a description the exact opposite of those currently ascribed to his acting. He was considered too subdued and tame in the part:
"Mr. Forrest essayed the difficult character of Macbeth, for the first time in this country, on Wednesday evening. We are inclined to think that this highly-gifted actor has not often attempted this part; because, though his performance displayed many noble traits of genius, yet it could not, as a whole, boast of that equally-sustained excellence by which his personation of Lear and of Othello was distinguished. We were highly gratified by his exertions in that part of the second act which commences with the 'dagger soliloquy,' and ends with Macbeth's exit, overwhelmed with fear, horror, and remorse. There is no man on the stage at present who could, in this scene, produce so terrific an effect. Never did we see the bitterness of remorse, the pangs of guilt-condemning conscience, so powerfully portrayed. The storm of feeling by which the soul of Macbeth is assailed, spoke in the agitated limbs of Mr. Forrest, and in the wild, unearthly glare of his eye, ere he had uttered a word. On his entrance after his bloody mission to Duncan's chamber, Mr. Forrest introduced a new and a very striking point. Absorbed in the recollection of the crime which he has committed, he does not perceive Lady Macbeth till she seizes his arm. Then, acting under the impulse of a mind fraught with horror, he starts back, uttering an exclamation of fear, as if his way had been barred by some supernatural power. This fine touch, so true to the scene and to nature, drew down several rounds of applause. In the banquet scene, too, his acting was very fine; and the greater part of the fifth act was supported with extraordinary energy. That passage in which, having heard that 'a wood does come toward Dunsinane,' Macbeth exclaims to the messenger,—