"Praise to the Bard! His words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er beneath the arch of heaven
The birds of fame have flown.
"Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined,—
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."
The Manchester Guardian published a critique on the Spartacus of Forrest quite remarkable for its intelligent discrimination and choice diction. As a description it is very just, but utterly mistaken in its apparent implication that the spiritual should be made more distinctly superior to the physical in this part. The writer seems not to have remembered that Forrest was impersonating a semi-barbaric gladiator, in whom, when under supreme excitement, the animal must predominate over the intellectual. It would be false to nature to depict in such a man under such circumstances ideality governing sense, reason calmly curbing passion. It would be as absurd as to give a pugilist the mental splendor and majesty of a Pericles. The way in which the critic paints Forrest as representing Spartacus is exactly the way in which alone the character could be represented without a gross violation of truth:
"This is, perhaps, of all others, the character in which Mr. Forrest most excels; nay, stands alone. It implies and demands great physical strength, a man of herculean mould, and we doubt if ever we shall again look upon so fine a model of the lionhearted Thracian. That he is a barbarian, too, is in favor of the actor; for what would be blemishes in the polished Greek or haughty Roman are in keeping with the rude, untutored nature of the Thracian mountaineer. Since his former visit, Mr. Forrest has certainly improved, especially in the less showy passages of the play; and we admire him most in the quiet asides, the quick and clear directions as to the disposition of his troops, and any other portions of the dialogue that do not demand great emotion. In these he is natural and truthful. As before, when he comes to the delineation of the deeper passions of our nature, it is by energetic muscular action, and by the fierce shoutings or hoarse raving of his voice, that he conveys the idea,—not by any of the nicer touches of mental discrimination and expression. This course—an original one, in which perhaps he stands supreme—is most effective, or rather least defective, in this play, for the reason already given: in it his acting is of a high, but certainly not of the highest, order. It is the material seeking to usurp the throne of the ideal; physical force clutching at the sceptre of the intellectual; with what success the immutable laws of matter and mind will now, as ever, pronounce, in their irreversible decrees. Still, it is an extraordinary histrionic picture, which all lovers of the drama should contemplate. It is not a thing to be laughed at or sneered down. Power there is; at times great mental, as well as physical, power; but in the thrilling situations of the piece, that which should be the slave becomes the master; and energy of body reigns supreme over subordinated intellectual expression and mental dignity. He is the Hercules, or the Polyphemus, not the high-souled hero; and, in his fury, the raging animal rather than the goaded and distracted man."