“Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”
In the few pages of this tragedy Shakspeare gives perhaps the supremest existing example of the richness and power of the dramatic art. It sums up the story of life,—the joy of lovers, the anguish of bereavement, the trial of friendship, hope and fear, plot and counterplot, lust, hatred, crime and the remorse that follows, hearty mirth contrasted with sublime despair, death, and the dark ignorance of what it all means which shuts around the horizon with impenetrable clouds. Here are expressed an intensity of passion, a bitter irony, a helpless doubt, a vain struggle, a saturating melancholy and a bewildered end which would be too repulsive for endurance were it not for the celestial poetry which plays over it and permeates it all and makes it appear like a strange and beautiful dream.
As to the interpretation by Forrest of the part of Hamlet in the play it is but fair to quote in close what was said by a severe and unfriendly anonymous critic who admitted that the intelligence shown was uncommon, the elocution perfect, the manner discreet, the light and shade impressive. “Mr. Forrest struggles continually with Mr. Forrest. Mind wrestles with muscle; and although intellect is manifest, it is plain that the body with great obstinacy refuses to fulfil the demands of thought. To conceive bright images is a different thing from portraying them on the canvas. And when Mr. Forrest, attempting with high ambition to do that which nature forbids him to do, makes of philosophy a physical exhibition and reduces mental supremacy to the dominion of corporeal authority, he must blame that fate which cast him in no common mould and gave to the body a preponderance which neither study nor inspiration can overcome.” The critic here indicates the defect of the actor, unquestionably, but so exaggerated as to dwarf and obscure his greater merits.
CORIOLANUS.
Not many dramatic contrasts are wider than that between the complex imaginative character of the melancholy Hamlet, spontaneously betaking himself to speculation, and the simple passionate character of the proud Coriolanus, instinctively rushing to action. There was much in the build and soul of Forrest that closely resembled the haughty patrician, and he was drawn to the part by a liking for it accordant with his inherent fitness for it. For several years he played it a great deal and produced a strong sensation in it. So thoroughly suited were he and the part for each other, so pervasive and genuine was the identification of his personal quality with the ideal picture, that his most intimate friend, and the gifted artist chosen for the work, selected this as the most appropriate representative character for his portrait-statue in marble.
The features and contour of the honest, imperious, fiery, scornful, and heroic Coriolanus, as impersonated by Forrest with immense solidity and distinctness, were simple but grand in their colossal and unwavering relief. Kemble had been celebrated in this rôle. He played it as if he were a symmetrical statue cut out of cold steel and set in motion by some precise mechanical action. Forrest added to this a blood that seemed to flame through him and a voice whose ponderous syllables pulsated with fire. Stern virtue, ambition, deep tenderness, magnanimity, transcendent daring and pride and scorn,—the man as soldier and hero in uncorrupt sincerity and haughty defiance of everything wrong or mean,—these were the favorite attributes which Forrest met in Coriolanus, and absorbed as by an electric affinity, and made the people recognize with applauding enthusiasm. He might well utter as his own the words of his part to Volumnia,—
“Would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say, I play
The man I am.”