His experience arched from 1806 to 1872, a period perhaps more momentous in its events, discoveries, inventions, and prophetic preparations than any other of the same length since history began. He saw his country expand from seventeen States to thirty-seven, and from a population of six millions to one of forty millions, with its flag floating in every wind under heaven. Washington, indeed, and Franklin, were dead when the life of Forrest began; but Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Marshall, and a throng of the Revolutionary worthies were still on the stage. When he died, every one of the second great cluster of illustrious Americans, grouped in the national memory, with Clay, Calhoun, Webster, Irving, Cooper, and Channing in the centre, was gone; and even the third brilliant company, Emerson, Hawthorne, Bryant, Bancroft, and their peers, was already broken and faltering under the blows of death and decay. During this time his heart-strings stretched out to embrace, the vascular web of his proud sympathies was woven over, every successive State and Territory added to our domain, till, in his later age, his enraptured eyes drank in the wondrous loveliness of the landscapes of California. By his constant travels and sojourns in all parts of the land, by his acquaintance with innumerable persons representing all classes and sections, by the various relationships of his profession with literature, the press, and the general public, there are suggestive associations, for more than fifty years, between his person, his spirit, his fortunes, and everything that is most peculiar and important in the historic growth and moral changes and destiny of his country.
The composition of a narrative doing justice to a life with such contents and such relations may well be thought worth the while of any one. And if it be properly composed, if the programme here laid down be adequately filled up, the result cannot fail to offer instructions worthy the attention of the American people.
For the reasons now explained, the most intimate friends of Forrest had often tried to induce him to write his own memoir. They knew that such a work would possess extreme interest and value, and they felt that he had every qualification to do it better than it could be done by anybody else. But their efforts were vain. Pride in him was greater than vanity. He had as much self-respect as he had self-complacency. He was, therefore, not ruled by those motives which caused Cicero, Augustine, Petrarch, Rousseau, Gibbon, and a throng of lesser men, to take delight in painting their own portraits, describing their own experiences, toning up the details with elaborate touches. To the reiterated arguments urged by his friends, he replied, "I have all my life been surrounded, as it were, by mirrors reflecting me to myself at every turn; subjected to those praises and censures which keep consciousness in a fever; accompanied at every step by a constant clapping of hands and stamping of feet and pointing of fingers, with the shout or the whisper, 'There goes Forrest!' I have for years been sick of this fixing of attention on myself. I can enjoy sitting down alone and recalling the scenes and occurrences of the past, regarding them as objects and events outside. But to call them up distinctly as parts of myself, and record them as a connected whole, with constant references to the standards in my own mind and the prejudices in the minds of my friends and my enemies,—I cannot do it. The pain of the reminiscences, the distress of the fixed self-contemplation, would be too much. It would drive me mad. Give over. No persuasion on earth can induce me to think of it."
Every attempt to secure an autobiography having failed, the author of the present work was led, under the circumstances before stated, and with the promise that every facility should be afforded him, to assume the task. In the first conversation held with him on the undertaking, Forrest said, "Tell the truth frankly. Let there be no whitewashing. Show me just as I have been and am." As he thus spoke, he took down from a shelf of his library the first volume of the "Memoirs of Bannister the Comedian," by John Adolphus, and read, in rich sweet tones mellowed by the echoes of his heart, the opening paragraph, which is as follows: "A friendship of many years' duration, terminated only by his death, impels me to lay before the public a memoir of the life of the late John Bannister. In executing this task I am exempted from the difficulties that so frequently beset the author of a friendly biographical essay: I have no vices to conceal, no faults to palliate, no contradictions to reconcile, no ambiguities of conduct to explain. I purpose to narrate the life of a man whose characteristic integrity and buoyant benevolence were always apparent in his simulated characters, and who in real life proved that those exhibitions were not assumed for the mere purposes of his profession, but that his great success in his difficult career arose in no small degree from that truth and sincerity which diffused their influence over the personages he represented." As the admiring cadence of his voice died sadly away, he laid down the volume and said to his auditor, "For your sake, in the work on which you have entered, I wish it were with me as it was with Bannister. But it is otherwise. My faults are many, and I deserve much blame. Yet, after every confession and every regret, I feel before God that I have been a man more sinned against than sinning; and, if the whole truth be told, I am perfectly willing to bear all the censure, all the condemnation, that justly belongs to me. Therefore use no disguising varnish, but let the facts stand forth."
Such were the words of Forrest himself; and in their spirit the author will proceed, sparing no pains to learn the truth, neither holding back or trimming down foibles and vices nor magnifying virtues, recording his own honest convictions without fear or favor, hoping to produce as the result a book which shall do justice to its subject, and contain enough substantial worth and interest to repay the attention its readers may bestow on it. The work will be written more from the stage point of view than from the pulpit point of view, but most of all from that popularized academic or philosophic point of view which surveys the whole field of human life in a spirit at once of scientific appreciation, poetic sympathy, and impartial criticism.
It is to be understood that the acts or traits herein described which reflect particular credit on Edwin Forrest have not been paraded or proclaimed by himself, but have either been drawn from him by questioning or been discovered through inquiries set on foot and documents brought to light by friends who loved and honored him, knew how grossly he had been belied, and were determined that his true record should be set before the public. The writer hopes his readers will not here take a prejudice, imagining that they spy that frequent weakness of biographers, a tendency to undue laudation. All that he asks is that a candid examination be given to the evidence he adduces, and then that a corresponding decision be rendered. While he tries to do justice to the good side of his subject, he will be equally frank in exposing the ill side and pointing its morals.
The sources of information and authority made use of are as follows: First, conversations and correspondence, for five years, with Forrest himself; second, conversations and correspondence with his chief friends and intimates; third, half a dozen biographical sketches of considerable length, several of them in print, the others in manuscript; fourth, magazine articles and newspaper notices and criticisms, extending through his entire career, and reaching to the number of some twenty thousand; fifth, the mass of letters and papers left by him at his death, and made available for my purpose by the kindness of his executors. I must also make grateful acknowledgment, in particular, of valuable suggestions and aid from Gabriel Harrison and T. H. Morrell, two enthusiastic admirers of the player, whose loving zeal for him did not end with his exit.