But a fuller statement of his impressions in London, with interesting glimpses of his social life there, is contained in a letter to Leggett:
"... My success in England has been very great. While the people evinced no great admiration of the Gladiator, they came in crowds to witness my personation of Othello, Lear, and Macbeth. I commenced my engagement on the 17th of October at 'Old Drury,' and terminated it on the 19th of December, having acted in all thirty-two nights, and represented those three characters of Shakspeare twenty-four out of the thirty-two, namely, Othello nine times, Macbeth seven, and King Lear eight,—this last having been repeated oftener by me than by any other actor on the London boards in the same space of time, except Kean alone. This approbation of my Shakspeare parts gives me peculiar pleasure, as it refutes the opinions very confidently expressed by a certain clique at home that I would fail in those characters before a London audience.
"But it is not only from my reception within the walls of the theatre that I have reason to be pleased with my English friends. I have received many grateful kindnesses in their hospitable homes, and in their intellectual fireside circles have drunk both instruction and delight. I suppose you saw in the newspapers that a dinner was given to me by the Garrick Club. Serjeant Talfourd presided, and made a very happy and complimentary speech, to which I replied. Charles Kemble and Mr. Macready were there. The latter gentleman has behaved in the handsomest manner to me. Before I arrived in England, he had spoken of me in the most flattering terms, and on my arrival he embraced the earliest opportunity to call upon me, since which time he has extended to me many delicate courtesies and attentions, all showing the native kindness of his heart, and great refinement and good breeding. The dinner at the Garrick was attended by many of the most distinguished men.
"I feel under great obligations to Mr. Stephen Price, who has shown me not only the hospitalities which he knows so well how to perform, but many other attentions which have been of great service to me, and which, from his long experience in theatrical matters, he was more competent to render than any other person. He has done me the honor to present me with a copy of Shakspeare and a Richard's sword, which were the property of Kean. Would that he could bestow upon me his mantle instead of his weapon! Mr. Charles Kemble, too, has tendered me, in the kindest manner, two swords, one of which belonged to his truly eminent brother, and the other to the great Talma, the theatrical idol of the grande nation.
"The London press, as you probably have noticed, has been divided concerning my professional merits; though as a good republican I ought to be satisfied, seeing I had an overwhelming majority on my side. There is a degree of dignity and critical precision and force in their articles generally (I speak of those against me, as well as for me, and others, also, of which my acting was not the subject) that place them far above the newspaper criticisms of stage performances which we meet with in our country. Their comments always show one thing,—that they have read and appreciated the writings of their chief dramatists; while with us there are many who would hardly know, were it not for the actors, that Shakspeare had ever existed. The audiences, too, have a quick and keen perception of the beauties of the drama. They seem, from the timeliness and proportion of their applause, to possess a previous knowledge of the text. They applaud warmly, but seasonably. They do not interrupt a passion and oblige the actor to sustain it beyond the propriety of nature; but if he delineates it forcibly and truly, they reward him in the intervals of the dialogue. Variations from the accustomed modes, though not in any palpable new readings,—which, for the most part, are bad readings, for there is generally but one mode positively correct, and that has not been left for us to discover,—but slight changes in emphasis, tone, or action, delicate shadings and pencillings, are observed with singular and most gratifying quickness. You find that your study of Shakspeare has not been thrown away; that your attempt to grasp the character in its 'gross and scope,' as well as in its details, so as not merely to know how to speak what is written, but to preserve its truth and keeping in a new succession of incidents, could it be exposed to them,—you find that this is seen and appreciated by the audience; and the evidence that they see and feel is given with an emphasis and heartiness that make the theatre shake.
"Though my success in London, and now here, has been great beyond my fondest expectations; though the intoxicating cup of popular applause is pressed nightly, overflowing, to my lips; and though in private I receive all sorts of grateful kindnesses and courtesies,—yet—yet—to tell the truth—there are moments when a feeling of homesickness comes upon me, and I would give up all this harvest of profit and fame which I am gathering, to be once more in my 'ain hame' and under 'the bright skies of my own free land.'"
The above estimate of British dramatic criticism is a little rose-colored, from the imperfect experience of the writer at the time. It was not long before he knew more of it in its less attractive aspect. For he found that the same unhappy influences of personal prejudice and spite, of ignorance and spleen, of cabal interest and corruption, which betrayed themselves in the American press, were conspicuously shown also in the English. Only a few months before the arrival of Forrest, a company of French players from Paris had attempted to perform in London, and had been subjected to treatment, through the instigation of the rival theatres, which had caused their failure and deeply disgraced and mortified the public. The intense self-interest and notorious jealousy of prominent players, as a class, produced in London, as elsewhere, cliques who set up as champions each of its favorite performer, and strove to advance him, not only by rightful means, but likewise by the illegitimate method of putting his competitors down. The chosen literary tool of a great tragedian, the newspaper critic who arrogates to represent his interests, very often volunteers services with which his principal has nothing to do. It was so in London while Forrest played in Drury Lane. Macready, Vandenhoff, Charles Kemble, Charles Kean, and Booth all had rival engagements. Three different newspapers were the respective organs of three of these actors. All three agreed in depreciating and abusing the stranger, while each one at the same time spoke with detraction and sneers of the favorites of the other two. While the general press spoke fairly of each performer, and gave Forrest such notices as more than satisfied him and his friends, these special papers indulged in fulsome eulogy of their chosen idol and assailed the others with satire and insult. For example, one writer says of Kean, "He stars in country theatres, where his power of exaggerating the faults of his father's acting gives delight to the unwashed of the gallery, who like handsome dresses, noise, stamping, bustle, and splutter." A second says of Booth, "Bunn, in his drowning desperation, catches at straws. He has put forward Booth, the shadow and foil of Kean in bygone days. His Richard seems to have been a wretched failure." A third says of Macready in Othello, in the scene with Iago and Brabantio, "He comes on the stage with the air of a sentimental negro rehearsing the part of Hamlet." And a fourth characterizes the voice of Macready "as a combination of grunt, guttural, and spasm." After such specimens of "criticism" on their own countrymen, one need not feel surprised to read notices of a foreigner, inspired by the same spirit, like the following from the "Examiner": "Mr. Forrest has appeared in Mr. Howard Payne's foolish compilation called Brutus. This is an American tragedy, and not ill-suited, on the whole, to Mr. Forrest's style. The result was amazingly disagreeable." The animus of such writing is so obvious to every person of insight that it falls short of its mark, and does no injury to the artist ridiculed. The writer shows himself, as one of his contemporaries said, not a critic, but a caviller,—a gad-fly of the drama.
Among the squibs that flew on all sides among the partisans, abounding in phrases like "the icy stilts and bombastic pomposity of Vandenhoff," "the stiff and disagreeable mannerism of Macready," "the affected, half-convulsive croaking of Charles Kean," "the awkward ignorance and brutality of Forrest," the American actor was treated, on the whole, as well as the English ones. A gentleman who had a private box in Drury Lane lent it to a friend to see Forrest in Othello. But it was one of his off-nights, in which Booth was substituted as Richard. The next morning these lines appeared in a public print, as full of injustice as such things usually are:
"Of Shakspeare in barns we have heard;
Yet who has the patience, forsooth,