CHAPTER VIII.
GROWTH AND FRESHNESS OF PROFESSIONAL GLORY: INVIDIOUS
ATTACKS AND THEIR CAUSES.
The next marked division in the biography of Forrest covers the period between his twenty-first and his twenty-eighth year, from the close of his first engagement at the Bowery in 1827 to his departure for Europe in 1834. No other actor ever lived who at so early an age achieved a series of popular successes so steady, so brilliant, so extensive as those which filled these seven triumphant and happy years. They yet remain unparalleled. It was undoubtedly the most fortunate and the most enjoyed period of all in his long career. His health and vigor were superb, his faculties joyously unfolding, his senses in their keenest edge, his glory spreading on all sides, money pouring into his purse, the general love and praise lavished on him scarcely as yet broken by the dissenting voices or alloyed by the signals of envy. His name was emblazoned in the chief cities all over the land, the press teemed with kindly notices, his performances were attended nightly by enthusiastic crowds, who applauded him to the very echoes that applauded again.
In his social relations,—the secondary domain of life,—he saw his desires flatteringly gratified in an increasing degree, his goings and comings announced like those of a king, the eyes of the throng turned after him wherever he went, his thoughts and passions taking electric effect on the excited crowds who gathered to gaze on his playing, choice friends suing for his leisure hours. The common estimate of him and the popular feeling towards him are accurately reflected in the sonnet addressed to him at this time by his friend Prosper M. Wetmore:
"Enriched with Nature's brightest powers of mind,
Deep is thy influence o'er man's feeling breast;
When fiercest passions come at thy behest
In all the magic strength of truth, they bind
'Neath their broad spell the pulses of the heart,