General Wetmore rose and alluded to an eminent man who was present at the last public dinner given to Mr. Forrest in New York, one of his dearest friends, and who was now in his grave, and gave "The Memory of William Leggett," which was drunk standing, and in solemn silence.
Other toasts were proposed, letters were read, speeches made, songs sung, and every one seemed thoroughly to enjoy the occasion, which closed by the whole company joining hands and singing "Auld Lang Syne."
Yet, amidst all these honoring and most enjoyable experiences at home, Forrest had brought back with him from abroad a burning grudge. Shut up in his bones, it gnawed upon his comfort and peace. The different theatrical and social parties knew of his grievances through the press. Among his friends, of course, he conversed freely of them; and there was a multitude of his admirers among the populace who were as loyal to him as clansmen to their chief. Their passions exaggeratingly took up what their intelligence knew little about, and they were ripe for mischief whenever an opportunity and the slightest provocation should be afforded them. This, it should be understood, without any purposed stimulus or overt hint from him. Such was the state of things when Macready once more came to America. The ingredients were ready for a popular explosion if a spark should be blown on them. Had the English tragedian kept silent, the latent storm might not have burst; but, unhappily, he began at once to make allusions to conspiracies, to enemies, to a certain class in the community,—allusions which were but too quickly caught up and applied and resented. And so the virus worked.
Place must here be found for a tender and tragic passage in the life of Forrest, whose date remained thenceforth a sacred and solemn mark in his memory,—the death of his mother.
Dear Lawson,
My Mother is dead.
That little sentence speaks
all I can say, and more
—much more.
Yours truly
Edwin Forrest.
James Lawson.
June 25. 1847.
Philadelphia
This event occurred, after a brief and not painful illness, on the twenty fourth of June, 1847, in the seventy-third year of her age. The preceding fac-simile of the announcement of the sad event to one of his oldest and dearest friends is expressive in its Spartan brevity.
The day after the burial, one of the papers said, "The funeral of the mother of Edwin Forrest, the great American tragedian, took place yesterday. She was buried in St. Paul's churchyard. The emotions of the actor on taking his last look at the parent who had always loved and cherished him so tenderly were far more keen than any he had ever feigned on the stage. We regard the mother of a man of fame and genius with an involuntary feeling of reverence. We think of her care and tutoring of her child in his earliest years."
The grief of Forrest when the form of his mother sank from his sight into the grave was indeed sharp and profound. His friend Forney said to him afterwards, "I did not suppose you were so sensitive. I saw how hard you had to struggle to control your feelings; and I think all the more of you for it."