[A] "Forrest a reçu le surnom de Talma de l'Amérique, et ce surnom n'est point immérité. Forrest, de stature plus grande, plus athlétique que Talma, a avec lui une certaine ressemblance de tête. Il a étudié ce grand modèle auquel il a gardé une sorte de culte, et, dans son dernier voyage de Paris, en 1834, sa première visite fut à la tombe du grande artiste, sur laquelle il alla modestement et secrètement déposer une couronne. Il y a quelque choses de touchant et d'éloquent dans cet hommage apporté des rives lointaines du Nouveau-Monde à celui qui fut le roi du théâtre européen. Forrest a dans son répertoire certains rôles qui auront pour le public français un grand attrait de nouveauté. Tel est, par exemple, celui de l'Indien Metamora, qu'il rend avec tant d'énergie et de sauvage vérité. A son talent de premier ordre, Forrest a dû non-seulement une réputation sans rivale en ce pays, mais encore une très-belle fortune. Il est aussi haut placé comme homme que comme artiste. Il est l'un des tribuns les plus éloquents du parti démocrate, et il été un moment question de le nommer représentant du peuple au congrès. Il a donc tout espèce de titres à une réception brillante et digne de lui de la part du peuple parisien, si hospitalier à toutes les gloires. A sa titres nombreux à cette hospitalité, M. Forrest en a ajouté un encore, s'il est possible, par la manière honorable et cordiale dont il a parlé de la France dans le discours d'adieu qu'il a adressé l'autre jour aux habitans de Philadelphie. Voici la fin de ce speech: 'Pendant le voyage que je vais faire à l'étranger, je me propose de donner quelque représentations dans la capitale de la France, où je recevrai, je n'en doute pas, l'accueil le plus bienveillant et le plus cordial. Je crois que je ne hasarde rien en osant tant espérer. Je parle d'après ma connaissance personnelle du peuple français, au sein duquel je sais qu'un Américain est toujours bien venu. Un Américain se souvient avec gratitude que la France a été l'alliée, l'amie de son pays, dans la guerre de son indépendance, et la nation française n'a point oublié que c'est à l'exemple de l'Amérique qu'elle doit son initiation à la grande cause de la liberté humaine.'"
Meanwhile, the respective adherents of the rivals fanned the flames of the quarrel by their constant recriminations in the press, and kept the controversy spreading. Criticisms, accusations, rejoinders, flew to and fro between the assailants and the champions of each side. An extract from an article by one of the best-informed of the English friends of the American actor, though obviously written with a bias, yet throws light in several directions. He says, "There are half a dozen writers for the press in London who are recipients of constant attentions from the clique with which Macready lives, a clique of wits, artists, authors, and men-about-town, who hover in the outskirts of high life and form a barrier stratum between the lesser aristocracy and the critics. The critics support upward, the clique transmit notice downward, and Macready controls this clique by the consequence he has as favored by the noblemen who play the patron to his profession. Forrest is a true republican, and cannot be a courtier,—
'He would not flatter Neptune for his trident.'
He neglects the finical rules and scorns to observe the demands of the courtly circles which arrogate all superiority to themselves." Under these circumstances a growing dislike and a final collision between the men were inevitable by the logic of human nature.
Thus the quarrel went on, nor was confined to the scene of combat. Its echoes rolled back to America, growing as they went, and adding, somewhat extravagantly, to their individual import a national significance. A long article appeared in the "Democratic Review," entitled "Mr. Forrest's Second Reception in England." A portion of it will be found still to possess interest and suggestiveness:
"It is the fortune of this country to send over the water from time to time men who are palpable and obvious embodiments of its spirit, and who do not fail, therefore, to stir the elements among which they are cast.
"Daniel Webster was one of these; and we all recollect how his motions were watched, his words chronicled, his looks at court, in Parliament, and at agricultural dinners taken down. They felt that he was a genuine piece of the country, and, in presence of his oak-ribbed strength of person and understanding, acknowledged that he belonged to the land he came from. Mr. Forrest is another of these; quite as good in his way; struck out of the very heart of the soil, and vindicating himself too clearly to be misunderstood, as a creature of its institutions, habits, and daily life. His biography is a chapter in the life of the country; and taking him at the start, as he appears on the Bowery stage (a rugged, heady, self-cultured mass of strength and energy thrown down in the most characteristic spot in the American metropolis), and running on with him through all his career, in the course of which it became necessary for him more than once to take society by the collar, down to the day when, in his brass-buttoned coat, he set out for this second expedition to Europe, we shall find him American every inch, the growth of the place, and well entitled to make a stir among the smooth proprieties of the Princess's Theatre. And he has done so. When, after an absence of something like seven years, he heaves up his sturdy bulk against the foot-lights on the English house, the audience know him at once to be genuine: but lurking in the edges of the place are certain sharp-eyed gentlemen, who in the very teeth of the unquestionable force before them, massive, irregular it may be, discover that Mr. Forrest has lapsed from his early manner, and has subsided into tameness and effeminacy!
"Mr. Forrest's English position at this moment is, in our view, just what his true friends would desire. He is carrying his audiences with him; and has from the press just the amount of resistance required to rouse him to new efforts, and to bring out the whole depth and force of New-Worldism in him, to play an engagement such as he has never played before, and to measure himself in assured strength by the side of the head of the English school.
"Mr. Macready, an admirable performer, succeeds by subduing all of the man within him; because he ceases, in the fulfilment of his function as an actor, to have any fellowship with the beatings and turmoils and agitations of the heart. He is classical in spirit, in look, and action.
"It is because he is a man of large heart, and does not forget it in all the mazes of the stage, that Mr. Forrest has sway with the house. He never loses sight of the belief that it is he, a man, with men before him, who treads the boards, and asks for tears, and sobs, and answers of troubled hearts. It is no painted shadow you see in Forrest; no piece of costume; no sword or buckler moving along the line of light as in a procession; but a man, there to do his four hours' work; it may be sturdily, and with great outlay of muscular power, but with a big heart; and if you fail to be moved, you may reasonably doubt whether sophistication has not taken the soul out of you, and left you free to offer yourself for a show-case or a clothier's dummy.