I found in Edwin Forrest a man who must always live in the history of the stage as the first great original American actor. This place is secured to him by his nativity, the variety, independence, vigor, and impressiveness of his impersonations, the important parts with which he was so long exclusively identified, the extent and duration of his popularity, and the imposing results of his success. Other distinguished actors who have had a brilliant reputation in this country have been immigrants or visitors here, as Cooke, Cooper, Conway, Kean, Booth; or have been eminent only in some special part, as Marble, Hackett, Setchell, Jefferson; or have enjoyed but a local celebrity, as Burton, Warren, and others. But Forrest, home-born on our soil, intensely national in every nerve, is indissolubly connected with the early history of the American drama by a career of conspicuous eminence, illustrated in a score of the greatest characters, and reaching through fifty years. During this prolonged period his massive physique, his powerful personality, his electrifying energy, his uncompromising honesty and frankness, his wealth, the controversies that raged around him, the unhappy publicity of his domestic misfortune, and other circumstances of various kinds, combined, by means of the newspapers, pamphlets, pictures, statuettes, caricatures, to make him a familiar presence in every part of the country. Therefore, whatever differences there may have been in the critical estimates of the rank of his particular presentments or of his general style of acting, it is impossible to deny him his historic place as the first great representative American actor. He likewise deserves this place, as will hereafter be recognized, by his pronounced originality as the founder of a school of acting—the American School—which combined, in a manner without any prominent precedent, the romantic and the classic style, the physical fire and energy of the melodramatic school with the repose and elaborate painting of the artistic school.
It cannot be fairly thought that the great place and fame of Forrest are accidental. Such achievements as he compassed are not adventitious products of luck or caprice, but are the general measure of worth and fitness. Otherwise, why did they not happen as well to others among the hundreds of competitors who contended with him at every step for the same prizes, but were all left behind in the open race? If mere brawniness, strutting, rant, purchased favor, and clap-trap could command such an immense and sustained triumph, why did they not yield it in other cases, since there were not at any time wanting numerous and accomplished professors of these arts? A wide, solid, and permanent reputation, such as crowned the career of Forrest, is obtained only by substantial merit of some kind. The price paid is commensurate with the value received.
The common mass of the community may not be able to judge of the supreme niceties of merit in the different provinces of art, to appreciate the finest qualities and strokes of genius, and award their plaudits and laurels with that exact justice which will stand as the impartial verdict of posterity. In these respects their decisions are often as erroneous as they are careless and fickle; and competent judges, trained in critical knowledge, skilled by long experience to detect the minutest shades of truth and falsehood, beauty and ugliness, desert and blameworthiness, will not hesitate to overrule the passing partialities of the contemporary crowd, and rectify their errors for the record of history. But the multitude are abundantly able—none more so—to respond with admiring interest to the impression of original power, recognize the broad outlines of a sublime and fiery soul, thrill under the general signs of genius, and pay deserved tribute to popular exhibitions of skill. And when this great coveted democratic tribute has been given to a public servant, in an unprecedented degree, for half a century, throughout the whole extent of a nation covering eight millions of square miles and including more than thirty millions of inhabitants, securing him a professional income of from twenty to forty thousand dollars a season, and filling three dozen folio volumes with newspaper and magazine cuttings composed of biographic sketches of him and critical notices of his performances,—to undertake to set aside the overwhelming verdict, as deceived and vulgar, is both idle and presumptuous. To account for a career like that of Edwin Forrest it is necessary to admit that he must have embodied force, intellect, passion, culture, and perseverance in a very uncommon degree. And in perceiving and honoring the general evidences of this the great average of the people are better judges, fairer critics, than any special classes or cliques can be; because the former are free from the finical likes and dislikes, the local whims and biases, the envy and squeamishness which prejudice the feelings and corrupt the judgments of the latter.
The historic place and power of Forrest are of themselves one good reason why his life should be fully and fairly written while all the data are within reach. For it can hardly be a matter of doubt that the theatre is destined in future ages to have in this country a rank and a space assigned to it in the education and entertainment of the public such as it has not yet known. The interest in types of human nature, in modes of human life, in all the marvels of the inner world of the soul, will increase with that popular leisure and culture which the multiplication of labor-saving machinery promises to carry to an unknown pitch; and as fast as this interest grows, the estimate of the drama will ascend as the best school for the living illustration of the experience of man. It is not improbable that the scholars and critics of America a hundred or two hundred years hence will be looking back and laboring with a zeal we little dream of now to recover the beginnings of our national stage as seen in its first representatives. For then the theatre, in its splendid public examples and in its innumerable domestic reduplications, will be regarded as the unrivalled educational mirror of humanity.
Of no American actor has there yet been written a biography worthy of the name; though scarcely any other sphere of life is so crowded with adventure, with romance, with every kind of affecting incident, and with striking moral lessons. The theatre is a concentrated nation in itself. It is a moving and illuminated epitome of mankind. It is a condensed and living picture of the ideal world within the real world. It has its old man, its old woman, its king and queen, its fop, buffoon, and drudge, its youth, its chambermaid, its child, its fine lady, its hero, its walking gentleman, its villain,—in short, its possible patterns of every style of character and life. On the surface of that little mimic world play in miniature reflection all the jealousies and ambitions, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, plots and counterplots, of the huge actual world roaring without. A clear portrayal of this from the interior, or even a constant suggestion of it in connection with the history of one of its representatives, must be full of interest and edification.
It is very singular, and lamentable too, that while there are hundreds of admirable and celebrated biographies of kings, generals, statesmen, artists, inventors, merchants, authors, there is said not to exist a single life of an actor which is a recognized classic, a work combining standard value and popular charm. This is especially strange when we recollect that the genius of the player has an incomparable claim for literary preservation, because the glorious monuments of the deeds of the others remain for the contemplation of posterity, but the achievements of the actor pass away with himself in a fading tradition. Architect, sculptor, painter, poet, composer, legislator, bequeath their works as a posthumous life. The tragedian has no chance of this sort unless the features and accents of the great characters he created are photographed in breathing description on the pages that record his triumphs and make him live forever, who otherwise would soon become a bodiless and inaudible echo.
The highest value and service of histrionic genius consist herein; that the magical power of its performances evokes in the souls of those who throng to gaze on them the noblest thoughts and sentiments in a degree superior to that in which they experience them in ordinary life. They thus feel themselves exalted to a grander pitch than their native one. If the great impersonations of Forrest can in a permanent biography be pictured adequately in the colors of reality, each copy of the book will perpetuate a reflex Forrest to repeat in literature on succeeding generations what he did so effectively in life on his contemporaries; namely, strike the elemental chords of human nature till they vibrate with intense sympathy to sublimer degrees than their own of the great virtues of manly sincerity, heroism, honor, domestic love, friendship, patriotism, and liberty, which he illustrated in his chief parts.
Furthermore, every actor who excelling in his art maintains a high character and bearing, and wins a proud social position and fortune, exerts an effective influence in removing the traditional odium or suspicion from his class, and thus confers a benefit on all who are hereafter to be members of it. His example deserves to be lifted into general notice. In the case of Forrest this consideration received an unprecedented emphasis from the fact of his devoting the vast sum of money amassed in his laborious lifetime to the endowment of a home for aged and dependent members of his profession, and of a school for the public teaching of the dramatic art.
Besides, he was a man of extraordinary strength and originality of character, an imperious, self-defending personality, living steadfastly at first hand from his own impulses, perceptions, and purposes, not shiftily in faded reflections of the opinions and wishes of other people at the second or third remove. He was a standing refutation of the common prejudice against actors, that simulating so many fictitious traits they gradually cease to have genuine ones of their own, and become mere lay figures ready for every chance dress. If any man ever was true to his own fixed type, Forrest was. The study of such a character is always attractive and strengthening, a valuable tonic for more dependent and aimless natures.
He lived a varied, wide, and profound life. He travelled extensively, mingled with all sorts of people, the noble and the base, the high and the low, observed keenly, reflected much, was exposed to almost every sort of trial, and assimilated into his experience the principal secrets of human nature. The moral substance of the world passed into his soul, and the great lessons of human destiny were epitomized there. He knew the inebriating sweetness of popular applause, and the bitter revulsions consequent on its change into public disfavor and censure. He wore the honors, suffered the penalties, and proved both the solidity and the hollowness of fame on its various levels, from the wild idolatry of ignorant throngs to the admiring friendship of gifted and refined spirits. There are swarms of men of dry and contracted souls, and of a poor, wearisome monotony of conventional habits, with no spiritual saliency or relish, no free appropriation of the treasures of the world, whose lives if written would have about as much dignity and interest as the life of a dorbug or a bat. But when a man's faculties are expansive, and have embraced, in a fresh, impulsive way, a great range of experiences, the story is worth telling, and, if truly told, will not fail to yield matter for profitable meditation.