As a contrast and offset to the foregoing specimens of self-display disguised as criticism of another, it is but fair to cite a few extracts from different writers who had really something appropriate to say on the subject they were treating, and who said it with exemplary directness and impartiality:
“As a reader Mr. Forrest has, in our opinion, few equals. Believing him to be the most overrated actor on the stage, we are yet not blind to his merit, but are glad to speak of the least of his excellences, and only wish they were more numerous. Let us take his inherent faults for granted, and consider his reading at the best. Does he fail in the first essential,—intelligibility? On the contrary, he enunciates a thought with such clearness that the meaning cannot be mistaken. Does he fail to give the rhythm and the rhetoric of verse? On the contrary, verse in his utterance retains its melody and music, and the high-sounding eloquence of words its majesty. He subtly marks the changes of reflection, and keeps the leading idea emphatic and distinct. There stands the thought at least, no matter if the feeling is a thousand miles away. He has carved the statue correctly, though he wants the power of the ancient sculptor to give the cold marble life. This he cannot do by ‘emphasizing every word,’ in the unnatural way of which our correspondent accuses him. Analyze one of his well-read sentences, and mark how the strong word and the strong sound fall together; then listen to most of the actors that surround him, and notice with what amusing vehemence they shout their ‘ands’ and ‘ifs’ and ‘buts.’ They begin every sentence with a stentorian cry that dwindles into an exhausted whisper.”
“As regards Forrest, we are often amused to hear people, who have vainly refused for years to recognize his great histrionic abilities, wonder how it is that he invariably attracts crowded houses whenever he performs. We do not know any actor of his rank who has been so scurrilously abused and to so little purpose. The most elaborate pretences at criticism are always poured out on his devoted head, and if the power of the press could have written a man down he surely would have been long since; for he has few special champions among acknowledged critics, a fact which shows how deep is the feeling against him among particular classes. We must candidly confess to have never been biased by profound admiration of Forrest’s acting, and yet we must also admit that after having calmly, patiently, and attentively watched some entire performances of his, we were convinced that he really possessed far greater powers of mind than any of the critics ever had given him credit for. His style is apt to be uneven, and men of his mould of intellect cannot always enact the same parts with the same good taste. But of his superb elocution,—of the noble idea of latent force and suppressed passion which his whole manner embodies,—of the perfection of manly dignity and physical development which have never had a better representative on the stage than in his person,—of the marvellous voice, so musical in its sound, and so happily adjusted in its modulations to increase the expression of a sentence,—there ought, in our judgment, to be no abatement of that admiration so long and so justly accorded to him. If all the critics in the country were with one voice to deny the existence of these things, their fiat would be powerless against the evidence of men’s senses. We admit that he has no subtlety of intellect, no finely-drawn perceptions of delicate shades of human character. What he does is the result of the action of a very strong mind, capable of being directed in a particular channel with resistless energy; but this is the very class of minds out of which have arisen some of the greatest men in the world’s annals. When Forrest performs an engagement people go to see him who know all his defects, but they go because it is the only acting of the highest class they have the opportunity of seeing, and it is so far above the rivalry of such actors as have been here during the last decade as to admit of no comparison.”
“It is said when Canova was finishing a choice marble that his friends were very anxious to see the work on exhibition, but the great artist restrained their impatience, and proposed to gratify their desire at the end of a given term. At the expiration of the time, his friends assembled eagerly, and, in tones of disappointment, exclaimed, ‘What have you been doing? You have been idle; you have done nothing to your piece.’ To which he replied, ‘On the contrary, my chisel has been exceedingly busy; I have subdued this muscle, I have brought out this feature, enlivened this expression, polished my marble.’ ‘Oh, but,’ said they, ‘these are mere trifles!’ ‘They may be,’ he said, ‘but trifles make up the sum of perfection.’ The Virginius of Mr. Forrest revived this anecdote of Canova, as well as remembrances of his early performances. The difference in the two cases, however, is that it is not the artist now, but his friends that see the perfection. Virginius has long been identified with Mr. Forrest’s fame; but, great as the lustre may be which his surpassing self-possession, noble and balanced bearing, rich, copious, and manly elocution, and deft, minute, and relative action have heretofore thrown upon this character, it has now been still more varied and beautified by the mellow tints that shadow and relieve the local splendor of salient features. It is indeed a masterpiece of acting and the ‘top of admiration.’ It is difficult to perceive any point of improvement that could give it more truth, in its lifelike resemblance, as a copy of fiction; and we are sure, after the ribaldry which of late years has degraded the boards, that there is not a single lover of the drama who saw this enactment who does not feel grateful to Mr. Edwin Forrest for his manly reassertion of the dignity of the stage.”
“We are disposed to admit the greatest liberty possible to the theatrical critic employed upon the daily press, but we cannot help alluding to the disgracefully savage bitterness of the writer in one of our weekly contemporaries as equally damaging to his employer’s reputation and his own. Mr. Forrest has now passed that period of his life in which he might have been injured by the malevolence of the individual. In the mass, criticism bows before his assured superiority, and it is simply a petty spite which dares persistently to deny his claims to genius of the highest order. He is no longer a man respecting whose position in the history of the American stage there can be any dispute. He stands completely alone. We are induced this week to make this remark from having freshly seen him in ‘Othello’ and ‘Macbeth.’ Can any observer who remembers his interpretation of the first of these characters, some twenty years since, or his rendering of the last one, but four years ago, and is disposed to examine them fairly, with reference to his present reading and acting of either part, deny this? If he does so, we can but feel that he is alike ungifted with the talent to recognize and the honesty to admit the wide difference which exists between them. His ‘Othello’ is now a most coherent and perfect whole. Where is the artist who can infuse a more perfect and thorough spirit of love than he does in that scene where he meets Desdemona again in Cyprus, after having quitted her in Venice? Where is the one who grows under the heat of Iago’s viperous tongue into a more sublimely savage delineation of jealousy than he does in the subsequent acts? Is not his
‘I love thee, Cassio,
But never more be officer of mine,’
one of the most perfect bits of natural feeling that has ever been uttered upon the stage? Friendship, anger, pity, and justice are all struggling within him, and shape the sorrow of the words that strip his lieutenant of the office which he considers him no longer worthy to retain. It may be observed that in alluding to these points we have not marked any of those more obvious beauties which have for many years been acknowledged in his representation of this character. These are settled excellencies in the estimation of all who love the tragic stage. Certain lines have been stereotyped to us by the genius of those who have embodied this greatest of Shaksperian characters; but for those who will reverently observe his impersonation, there are hitherto hidden points developed by Forrest which justify us in laughing at those whose resolute hatred of the artist blinds them to his excellence, and to the wonderful finish in the histrionic portraits which he offers them. We have good artists amongst us, but we certainly have none who can for a moment be fairly compared with him; and therefore is it that we say the man who constantly undervalues him simply marks himself as notoriously incapable of balancing the critical scales.”
The next extract is taken from a long article by the well-known scholar and author, Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie:
“We once heard a great author say, ‘Scurrility is the shadow of Fame, and as often precedes as follows it.’ That author was Bulwer, and his remark has the weight of an aphorism. With respect to Mr. Edwin Forrest, it is singular that he has been assailed in his native town by scurrility at an advanced period of his brilliant career, and at a time when his powers have ripened into something very close to perfection.