One point of very great beauty and power in this tragedy is the remarkable manner in which the author has combined the impassioned love of national liberty with the impassioned love of the natural scenery associated with that liberty. To these numerous descriptions, marked by the highest declamatory merit, Forrest did ample justice with his magnificent voice.
Indeed, elocutionary force and felicity were ever a central charm in his acting. He did not thrust the gift ostentatiously forward for its own sake, but kept it subordinated to its uses. His first aim in vocal delivery was always to articulate the thought clearly,—make it stand out in unmistakable distinctness; his second, to breathe the true feeling of the words in his tones; his third, by rate, pitch, inflection, accent, and pause, to give some imaginative suggestion of the scenery, of the thought, and thus set it in its proper environment. In the first aim he rarely failed; in the second he generally succeeded; and he often triumphed in the third. One example, which no man of sensibility who heard him pronounce it could ever forget, was this:
"I have sat
In my boat at night, when, midway o'er the lake,
The stars went out, and down the mountain gorge
The wind came roaring,—I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save his own.
You know the jutting cliff, round which a track