sensational and artistic acting.—characters of physical

and mental realism.—rolla.—tell.—damon.—brutus.—

virginius.—spartacus.—metamora.

a nation beginning its career as a colony is naturally dependent on the parent country for its earliest examples in culture. some time must elapse; wealth, leisure, and other conditions favorable to spiritual enrichment and free aspiration must be developed, before it can create ideals of its own and achieve æsthetic triumphs in accordance with them. such was the case with america. its mental dependence on england continued long after its civil allegiance had ceased. little by little, however, the colonial temper and servile habit were repudiated in one province after another of the national activity. jefferson was our first audacious and fruitful original thinker in politics. in painting, stuart arose as a bold and profound master, with no teacher but nature. in fiction, cooper opened a rich field, and reaped a harvest of imperishable renown. in religion, the inspired genius of channing appeared with a leavening impulse which still works. and in poetry, bryant was the earliest who treated indigenous themes with a distinction which has made his name ineffaceable.

in no other region of the national life was the colonial dependence so complete and so prolonged as in the drama. the chief plays and actors alike were imported. scarcely did anything else dare to lift its head on the theatrical boards. all was servile imitation or lifeless reproduction, until forrest fought his way to the front, burst into fame, and by the conspicuous brilliance of his success heralded a new day for his profession in this country. forrest, as an eloquent writer said a quarter of a century ago, was the first great native actor who brought to the illustration of shakspeare and other poets a genius essentially american and at the same time individual,—a genius distinguished by its freedom from all trammels and subservience to schools, by its force

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in a self-reliance which seemed loyalty to nature, and by its freshness in an ideal which gave to all his efforts a certain moral elevation,—a genius which, after every deduction, still remained as a something peculiarly noble and enkindling, highly original in itself, and distinctively american. this is certainly his historic place; and it was perhaps more fortunate than calamitous that he was left in his early years so largely without teachers and without models, to develop his own resources in his early wanderings as a strolling player in the west by direct experience of the soul within him and direct observation of the impassioned unconventional life about him. he was thus forced to shape out of the mint of his own nature the form and stamp and coloring of his conceptions. there was fitness and significance in such a genius as his maturing and pouring itself out under the shade of the western woods, rising up amid their grandeur clear and simple as a spring, till, fed and strengthened, it leaped forth fresh and thundering as a torrent.

in characterizing forrest as a tragedian by the epithet american, it is necessary that we should understand what is meant by the word in such a connection. we mean that he was an intense ingrained democrat. democracy asserts the superiority of man to his accidents. its genius is contemptuous of titular claims or extrinsic conditions in comparison with intrinsic truth and merit. its glance pierces through all pompous circumstances and pretences, to the personal reality of the man. if that be royal and divine, it is ready to worship; if not, it pays no false or hollow tribute, no matter what outward prestige of attraction there may be or what clamor of threats. that is the proper temper and historic ideal of our republic; and that was forrest in the very centre of his soul, both as a man and as an actor.

but his individuality was in the general sense as deeply and positively human as it was american or democratic. that is to say, he was an affirmative, believing, sympathetic character, not a skeptical, negative, or sneering one. he so vividly loved in their plain and concrete reality his own parents, brothers and sisters, friends, native land, that he could give vivid expression to such sentiments in abstract generality without galvanizing his nerves with any artificial volition. his affections preponderated over his antipathies. he was not fond of badinage, but full of

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downright earnestness. he loved the sense of being, enjoyed it, was grateful for its privileges, and delighted to contemplate the phenomena of society. he had the keenest love for little children, and the deepest reverence for old age. he valued the goods of life highly, and labored to accumulate them. he had a vivid sensibility for the beauties of nature. he had an enthusiastic admiration of great men, and a ruling desire for the prizes of honor and fame. his soul thrilled at the recital of glorious deeds, and his tears started at a great thought or a sublime image or a tender sentiment. friendship for man, love for woman, a kindling patriotism, a profound feeling of the domestic ties, a burning passion for liberty, and an unaffected reverence for god, were dominant chords in his nature. he had no patience with those vapid weaklings, those disappointed aspirants or negative dreamers, who think everything on earth a delusion or a temptation, nature a cheat, man a phantom or a fool, history a toy, life a wretched chaos, death an unknown horror, and nothing between worth an effort. he was, on the contrary, a wholesome realist, full of throbbing vitality and eagerness, embracing the natural goods of existence with a sharp relish, and putting a worshipful estimate on the ideal glories of humanity. intellect, instinct, and affection in him were all alive,—free and teeming springs of personal power. this rich fulness of positive life and passion in himself both opened to him the elemental secrets of experience and enabled him to play effectively on the sympathies of other men.

let such a man, trained under such circumstances, endowed with a magnificent physique, overflowing with energy and fire, become an actor, and it is easy to see what will be the leading ideal exemplified in his personations. exactly what this dominant ideal was will be illustrated in the descriptions which are to follow. but a clear statement of it in advance will aid us the better to appreciate those descriptions.

the rank of any work of art is determined by the ideal expressed in it, and the accuracy of its expression. as has been well said, no art better illustrates this fact than the art of acting. take, for instance, the genius of kemble. his ideal was authority. he was never so impressive as in the illustration of a king or ruler. in coriolanus, in macbeth, in wolsey, in every character that gave opportunity for it, he was ever expressing the sense of

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mental or official power as the noblest of human attributes. so the ideal of cooke was skepticism. he was always best as a social infidel, uttering the bitterest sarcasms. it was this faculty that rendered his man of the world so great a triumph. the ideal of kean, again, was retribution. he was grandest as the sufferer and avenger of great wrongs. and the ideal of macready was that of kemble modified by its more fretful and impatient expression, making him ever most effective in the display of some form of pride or wounded honor, as in werner, richelieu, melantius.

in distinction from the special ideals of these and the other most celebrated tragedians of the past, the ideal of forrest was unquestionably the democratic ideal of universal manhood, a deep sense of natural and moral heroism, sincerity, friendship, and faith. this imperial self-reliance and instinctive honesty, this unperverted and unterrified personality poised in the grandest natural virtues of humanity, is the key-note or common chord to the whole range of his conceptions, on which all their varieties are modulated, from rolla and tell to metamora and spartacus, from damon and brutus to othello and lear. fearless, faithful manhood penetrates them all, is the great elevating principle which makes them harmonics of one essential ideal. to have exemplified so sublime an ideal, in so many grand forms, each as clearly defined as a sculptured statue, during a half-century, before applauding millions of his countrymen, is what stamps forrest and makes him worthy of his fame, singling him out in the rising epoch of his country's greatness as one of the most imposing and not unworthiest of her types of nationality.

there are two contrasted styles of the dramatic art which have long been recognized and discriminated in the two schools of acting, the romantic and the classic. before proceeding to the best rôles of forrest in his earlier period, it is indispensable that we clearly seize the essence of the distinction between these two schools. otherwise we shall fail to see the originality and importance of the relation in which he stood to them.

the one school, in its separate purity, is sensational or natural, exhibiting characters of physical and mental realism; the other is reflective or artistic, representing characters of imaginative portraiture. the former springs from strong and sincere im

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pulses, the latter from clear and mastered perceptions. that is based on the instincts and passions, and is predominantly imitative or reproductive; this rests on the intellect and imagination, and is predominantly creative. the one projects the thing in reflex life, as it exists in reality; the other reveals it, as in a glass. that is nature brought alive on the stage; this is art repeating nature refined at one mental remove. they resemble and contrast each other as the hurtless image of the bird mirrored in the lake would correspond with its concrete cause above, could it, while yet remaining a mere reflection, address our other senses as it now does the eye alone. the sensational acting of crude nature is characteristically sympathetic and mimetic in its origin, enslaved, expensive of force, and mainly seated in the nervous centres of the body. the artistic acting of the accomplished master is characteristically spiritual and self-creative in its origin, free, economical of exertion, and mainly seated in the nervous centres of the brain. the one actor lives his part, and is the character he represents; the other plays his part, and truly portrays the character he imagines.

the classic style is self-controlled, stately, deliberately does what it consciously predetermines to do, trusts as much to the expressive power of attitudes and poses as to facial changes and voice. it elaborates its rôle by systematic critical study, leaving nothing to chance, to caprice, or to instinct. the romantic style permeates itself with the situations and feeling of its rôle, and then is full of impetuosity and abandon, giving free vent to the passions of the part and open swing to the energies of the performer. the one is marked by careful consistency and studious finish, the other by impulsive truth, abrupt force, electric bursts. that abounds in the refinements of polished art, this abounds in the sensational effects of aroused and uncovered nature. the former is adapted to delight the cultivated few, the latter thrills the unsophisticated many.

now, it was the originality of forrest that he combined in a most fresh and impressive manner the fundamental characteristics of both these schools,—in his first period with an undoubted preponderance of the characters of physical realism, but in his second period with an unquestionable preponderance of the characters of imaginative portraiture. he was from the first both an artistic and

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a sensational actor. none of his great predecessors ever came upon the stage with conceptions more patiently studied, wrought up with a more complete consistency in every part, or with the perspective, the foreshortening, the lights and shades, arranged with more conscientious fidelity. his idea of a character might sometimes, perhaps, be questioned, but the clearness with which he grasped his idea, and the thorough harmony with which he put it forth and sustained it, could not be questioned. in this respect he was one of the most consummate of dramatic artists. and as for the other side of the picture, the spontaneous sincerity and irresistible force of his demonstrations of the great passions of the human heart were almost unprecedented in the effects they wrought.

in an accurate use of the words, sensational acting would be acting that took its origin in the senses and passed thence through the muscles without the intervention of the mind. this is the acting learned by the parrot, the dog, or the monkey, and by the mere mimic. artistic acting, on the other hand, is acting which originates in the creative mind and is freely sent thence through the proper channels of expression. the true definition of art is feeling passed through thought and fixed in form. when the intellectualized feeling is fixed in its just form, it should be made over to the automatic nerves, and the brain be relieved from the care of its oversight and direction. then playing becomes beautiful, because it is at ease in unconscious spontaneity. otherwise, it often becomes repulsive to the delicate observer, because it is laborious. this was the one defect of forrest which lamed him in the supreme height of his great art. his brain continued to do the work. there was often too much volition in his play, causing a muscular friction and an organic expense which made the sensitive shrink, and which only the robust could afford. but no one was more completely an artist in always passing his emotions through his thought, knowing exactly what he meant to do and how he would do it.

the word melodramatic properly describes an action in which the movement is physical rather than mental, and in which more is made of the interest of the situations than of the revelation of the characters. for example, the pantomimic expression of great passions is melodramatic. in this sense forrest often produced

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the highest effects where the subject and the scene, the logic of the situation, required it. but in the popular sense of the term, which makes it synonymous with crudity and falsity, hollow extravagance, a vulgar aiming at a sensation by exaggeration or artifices which disregard the harmonious fitness of things, no actor could be more free from the vice. he was always sincere, always earnest, always careful of the sustained congruity of his representation. and within these limits, surely the more intense the sensation he could produce, the better. sensation is the very thing desired in attending a play. the spectators know enough for their present purpose; they want to be made to feel more keenly, more purely, more nobly. power and perfection on the lowest level are superior to weakness and failure on that level, and are not incompatible with power and perfection on all the higher levels, but rather tributary to them. did we not desire to be strong rather than weak, to be handsome rather than ugly, to be admired rather than scorned, all aspiration would cease, and the human race stagnate and end. to be capable of such astounding outbursts of power and passion as to electrify all who behold, curdle their very marrow, and cause them ever after to remember you with wondering interest and fruitful imitation, is a glorious endowment, worthy of our envy. to sneer at it as sensationalism gives proof of a mean disposition or a morbid soul.

in the same sense in which forrest was melodramatic, god and nature themselves are so. what can be more genuinely sensational than niagara, mont blanc, the earthquake, the tempest, the forked flash of the lightning, the crashing roll of the thunder, the crouch of the tiger, the dart of the anaconda, the shriek of the swooping eagle, the prance of the war-horse in his proud pomp? and the attributes of all these belong to man, with additions of nameless grandeur, terror, and beauty beside, making him an incarnate representative of god on the earth. to see forrest in lear, or salvini in saul, is to feel this. true sensationalism, banished in our tame times from the selfish and servile walks of common life, is the very desideratum and glory of the stage.

rolla.

one of the first characters in which forrest enjoyed great popularity was that of rolla, the peruvian hero. the play of

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"the spaniards in peru," by kotzebue, as rewritten by sheridan from a paraphrase in english, was for a long time a favorite with the public. it brought the adventurers and wonderful achievements of the most romantic kingdom in christendom into picturesque combination with the strange scenes, simplicity, and superstition of the newly-discovered transatlantic world, and was full of music, pomp, pictures, poetic situations, and processions. in literary style, the knowing critics call it tawdry and bombastic; in ethical tone, sentimental and inflated. but the average audiences, especially of a former generation, were not fastidious censors. they went to the theatre less to judge and sneer than to be moved with sympathy, enjoyment, and admiration. and they found this play rich in strong appeals to the better instincts of their moral nature. what the blasé found turgid, affected, or ludicrous, the unsophisticated felt to be eloquent, poetic, and noble. for the fair appreciation of a piece of acting, assuredly this latter point of view is preferable to the former; for tragedy is a form of poetry, and has as one of its purest functions the revelation of the moral ingredients of man, lifted, enlarged, and glorified in its mirror of art.

rolla is depicted as simple, grand, a nobleman of nature, frank, ardent, impulsive, magnanimous,—his own truth and heroism investing him with an invisible robe and crown of royalty. it was a rôle precisely adapted to the young tragedian whose own soul it so well reflected. endowed with all the chivalrous sentiments, expansive and kindling, uncurbed by the nil admirari standards of fashionable breeding, he could fill up every extravagant phrase of the part without any feeling of extravagance.

pizarro and his followers are pictured throughout the play in an odious light, as tyrants assailing the peruvians without provocation and slaughtering them without mercy. the sympathies of las casas and of the noble alonzo have been alienated from their own countrymen and transferred to the barbarians, who are represented in the most favorable colors as honest, affectionate, brave, standing in defence of their liberty and their altars. alonzo, disgusted and shocked by the atrocities of pizarro, has joined the peruvians, and has been placed in conjunction with rolla at the head of their forces. the aged orozembo, seized by the spaniards and brought before their leader, is questioned, "who is this

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rolla joined with alonzo in command?" he replies, "i will answer that; for i love to repeat the hero's name. rolla, the kinsman of the king, is the idol of our army; in war, a tiger; in peace, more gentle than the lamb. cora was once betrothed to him; but, finding she preferred alonzo, he resigned his claim, to friendship and her happiness." pizarro exclaims, "romantic savage! i shall meet this rolla soon." "thou hadst better not," replies orozembo; "the terrors of his eye would strike thee dead."

in the next scene the way is still further prepared for the impression of his appearance. his beloved alonzo and cora are discerned playing with their child in front of a wood. they talk of rolla, of his sacrifice for them, and of his noble qualities. shouts arise, when alonzo says, "it is rolla setting the guard. he comes." at that instant the sonorous tones of his voice are heard from outside the stage, like the martial clang of a trumpet, uttering the words, "place them on the hill fronting the spanish camp." every eye is fixed, the whole audience lean forward as he enters, and in a flash the magnetic spell is on them, and they breathe and feel as one man. the stately ease of his athletic port, his deep square chest, broad shoulders, and columnar neck, his frank brow, with the mild, glowing, open eyes, the warm blood mantling the brave and wooing face, seize the collective sympathy of the assembly, and they break into wild cheering. he seems to stand there, in his barbaric costume and majestic attitude, as a romantic picture stereoscoped by nature herself. and when, in reply to the exclamation of alonzo, "rolla, my friend, my benefactor, how can our lives repay the obligations which we owe thee?" he says, "pass them in peace and bliss; let rolla witness it, and he is overpaid,"—the very soul of friendship and nobility seems to flow in the sweet music of his liquid gutturals, and the charm is complete.

from this point onward to the close all was moulded and wrought up in perfect keeping. he had fashioned to himself a complete image of what rolla should be in accordance with the conception in the play, his carriage, walk, and attitudes, his style of gesture, his physiognomy, his tone and habit of voice. he had imprinted this idea so deeply in his brain, and had trained himself so carefully to its consistent manifestation, that his portrayal on the stage had all the unity of design and precision of

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detail which characterize the work of a masterly painter. instead of using canvas, pigment, and brush, he painted his part in the air in living pantomime. in all his rôles this was his manner more and more up to the crowning period of his career.

he gave extraordinary effectiveness to the famous address which rolla pronounces to the peruvian warriors on the eve of battle, by the manly truth and simplicity of his delivery,—"my brave associates, partners of my toil, my feelings, and my fame." instead of launching forth in a swollen and mechanical declamation, he spoke with the straightforward truth and the varied and hearty inflection of nature; and his honest earnestness woke responsive echoes in every breast. like macklin and garrick on the english stage, talma on the french, and devrient on the german, forrest on the american was a bold and original innovator on the inveterate elocutionary mannerism of actors embodied in what is universally known as theatrical delivery. for the mouthing formality, the torpid noisiness, the strained monotony and forced cadences of the routine players, these men of genius substituted—only enlarging the scale of power—the abruptness, the changes, the conversational vivacity of tone, emphasis, and inflection, which are natural to a free man with a free voice played upon by the genuine passions of life. this was one of the chief excellences and attractions of forrest throughout his professional course. he was ever a man uttering thoughts and sentiments,—not an elocutionist displaying his trade.

alonzo, filled with a presentiment of death, charged his friend, in such an event, to take cora for his wife and adopt their child. rolla, finding after the battle that alonzo was a prisoner, repeated his parting message to his wife. cora's suspicion was aroused, and she accused him of deserting his friend for the sake of securing her. then was shown a fine picture of contending emotions in rolla. disinterested and heroic to the last degree, to be charged with such baseness, and that, too, by the woman whom he loved and revered,—it stung him to the quick. injured honor, proud indignation, mortified affection, and magnanimous resolution were seen flying from his soul through his form and face. he determines to rescue alonzo by piercing to his prison and assuming his place. disguised as a monk, he asks the sentinel to admit him to the prisoner. being refused, he tries to bribe the sentinel.

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this fails, and he appeals to him by nobler motives, revealing himself as the friend of alonzo, who has come to bear his last words to his wife and child. the sentinel relents. rolla lifts his eyes to heaven, and says, "o holy nature, thou dost never plead in vain!" and rushes into the arms of his friend. after an earnest controversy, alonzo changes dress with him, and escapes, rolla exclaiming, with a sigh of satisfaction, "now, cora, didst thou not wrong me? this is the first time i ever deceived man. if i am wrong, forgive me, god of truth!"

all this was done with a sincerity and energy irresistibly contagious. and when elvira has armed him with a dagger and led him to the couch of the sleeping pizarro, when, instead of slaying his foe, he wakens him and drops the weapon, showing how superior a heathen can be to a christian, and when the tyrant calls in his guards and orders them to seize the hapless elvira, the contrast of the confronting rolla and pizarro, the example of godlike magnanimity and its foil of unnatural depravity, stands in an illumination of moral splendor that thrills every heart.

two more scenes remained to carry the triumph of forrest in the part to its culmination. the child of alonzo and cora, in ignorance of who he is, has been captured by the spanish soldiers, and is brought in. pizarro bids them toss the peruvian imp into the sea. with a start and look of alternating horror and love, rolla cries, "gracious heaven, it is alonzo's child!" "ha!" exclaims pizarro: "welcome, thou pretty hostage. now is alonzo again in my power." after vain expostulation, rolla prostrates himself before the cruel captain, saying, "behold me at thy feet, thy willing slave, if thou wilt release the child." other actors, including the cold and stately kemble, as they spoke these words, sank directly on their knees. but forrest introduced a by-play of startling power, full of the passionate warmth of nature. regarding pizarro with an amazement made of surprise and scorn waxing into noble anger, he is seen making the strongest exertion to refrain from rushing on the tyrant and striking him down. he begins to kneel. half-way in the slow descent, repugnance to stoop his manhood before such baseness checks him, and he partly rises, when a glance at the child overcomes his hesitation, and he sinks swiftly on his knees. the spaniard replies, "rolla,

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thou art free to go; the boy remains." with the rapidity of lightning, rolla snatches the child and lifts him over his left shoulder, and, waving his sword, cries, in clarion accents, "who moves one step to follow me dies on the spot!" he strikes down three of the guards who oppose him, and rushes across a bridge at the back of the stage. the soldiers fire, and a shot strikes him as he vanishes with the child held proudly aloft. the view changes to the peruvian court. the king is seen with his nobles, and with alonzo and cora distracted at the loss of their child. shouts are heard. "rolla! rolla!" the hero staggers in, bleeding, ghastly, and faint, and places the child in its mother's arms, with an exquisite touch of nature first drawing the little face down to his own and planting a kiss on it, staining it from his bleeding wounds in the act. she exclaims, "oh, god, there is blood upon him!" he replies, "'tis mine, cora." alonzo says, "thou art dying, rolla." he answers, faintly, "for thee and cora." one long gasp, a wavering on his feet, a convulsion of his chest, and he sinks in an inanimate heap.

the truth and power with which all this was done were attested by the crowds that thronged to see it, their intense emotion, and the universal praise for many years awarded to it.

tell.

another chosen part of forrest, in which he was received with extraordinary favor, was that of william tell. this play, like the former, had a basis of untutored love and magnanimity; but the romantic heroism of the character was less remote to the american mind, less strained in ideality, than that of rolla. the plot was simpler, the language more eloquent, domestic love more prominent, and patriotic enthusiasm more emphatic. in fact, the three constant keys of the action are parental affection, ardent attachment to native land, and the burning passion for liberty, corresponding with three central elements of strength in the personality of the actor now drawn to the part with a hungry instinct.

in preparation for this rôle, forrest had first the native congruity of his own soul with it. then he studied the character in the text of knowles with the utmost care, analyzing every speech and situation. furthermore, he saturated his imagination with the spirit of the life and legends of switzerland, by means of

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histories, books of travel, and engravings, till its people and their customs, its torrents, ravines, pastures, chalets, cloud-capped peaks, and storms, were distinct and real to him. in the next place, he paid great attention to his make-up, arraying himself in a garb scrupulously accurate to the fashion of a switzer peasant and huntsman.

no actor placed greater stress on a fitting costume than forrest. he knew its subtle influences as well as its more obvious effects. the more vital unity and sensitiveness we have, the more important each adjunct to our personality becomes. a man who is a sloppy mess of fragments is not influenced much by anything, and in return does not much influence anything; but to a man whose body and soul form, as it were, one vascular piece, the action and reaction between him and everything with which he is in close relation is of great consequence. the dress of such a person is another self, corresponding in some sort with the outer man as his skin does with the inner man.

when forrest came upon the stage with his bow and quiver, belted tunic and tight buskins, with free, elastic bearing, and high tread, deep-breathing breast, resounding voice, his whole shape and moving moulded to the robust and sinewy manners of the archer living in the free, open airs between the grass and the snow, he was an embodied picture of the legendary swiss mountaineer. at the first sight a keen sensation was produced in the audience, for it kindled all the enthusiastic associations fondly bound up with this image in the american imagination.

it is morning, the sunrise creeping down the flanks of the mountains and spreading over the lake and valley, in the background albert shooting at a mark, as tell appears in the distance returning from an early chase. approaching, he sees the boy, and pauses to watch him shoot. poised on a crag, leaping with eager gaze of fondness fixed on the little marksman, he looks like the statue of a chamois-hunter on the cliffs of mont blanc, carved and set there by some superhuman hand. then the magic voice, breathing love blent in freedom, is heard:

"well aimed, young archer!

there plays the skill will thin the chamois herd,

and bring the lammergeyer from the cloud

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to earth; perhaps do greater feats,—perhaps

make man its quarry, when he dares to tread

upon his fellow-man. that little arm

may pull a sinewy tyrant from his seat,

and from their chains a prostrate people lift

to liberty. i'd be content to die,

living to see that day. what, albert!"

the lad, with a glad cry of "ah, my father!" flies into his embrace, while in unison, from pit to gallery, a thousand hearts throb warmly.

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

up hither winds, whose base is but the brow

to such another one, with scanty room

for two abreast to pass? o'ertaken there

by the mountain blast, i've laid me flat along,

and while gust followed gust more furiously,

as if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

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and i have thought of other lands, whose storms

are summer flaws to those of mine, and just

have wished me there,—the thought that mine was free

has checked that wish, and i have raised my head

and cried in thraldom to that furious wind,

blow on! this is the land of liberty!"

and the following is another example, still happier in the climax of its eloquence:

"scaling yonder peak,

i saw an eagle wheeling near its brow:

o'er the abyss his broad expanded wings

lay calm and motionless upon the air,

as if he floated there without their aid,

by the sole act of his unlorded will,

that buoyed him proudly up. instinctively

i bent my bow; yet kept he rounding still

his airy circle, as in the delight

of measuring the ample range beneath

and round about: absorbed, he heeded not

the death that threatened him. i could not shoot—

'twas liberty! i turned my bow aside,

and let him soar away."

old melctal, the father of tell's wife, is led in by albert, blind and trembling, his eyes having been plucked from their sockets by order of gesler. as tell, horror-struck, listened to the frightful story from the lips of the old man, the revelation of the feelings it stirred in him was one of the most genuine and moving pieces of emotional portraiture ever shown to an audience. it was an unveiled storm of contending pity, amazement, wrath, tenderness, tears, loathing, and revenge. every muscle worked, his soul seemed wrapt and shaken with thunders and lightnings of passion, which alternately darkened and illumined his features, and he seemed going mad, until at last he seized his weapons and darted away in search of the monster whose presence profaned the earth, crying, as he went, "father, thou shalt be revenged, thou shalt be revenged!" the power of this effort is shown in the fact that more than one critic compared his struggle with his own feelings under the narrative of melctal to his subsequent struggle with the guards of gesler, when, like a lion amidst a pack of curs, he hurled them in every direction, and held them at bay till overpowered by sheer numbers. the mental struggle was quite as visibly defined and terrible as the physical one.

in this play forrest presented four successive examples of that

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proud assertion of an independent, high-minded man which has been said to be the real type of his character as a tragedian. these specimens were differenced from one another with such clean strokes and bold colors that it was an æsthetic as well as a moral luxury to behold him enact them. the first was a trenchant, sarcastic scorn of baseness, spoken when he sees the servile peasants bow to gesler's cap, and the hireling soldiery driving them to it:

"they do it, verner;

they do it! look! ne'er call me man again!

look, look! have i the outline of that caitiff

who to the outraged earth doth bend the head

his god did rear for him to heaven? base pack!

lay not your loathsome touch upon the thing

god made in his own image. crouch yourselves;

'tis your vocation, which you should not call

on free-born men to share with you, who stand

erect except in presence of their god

alone."

the second example is the stern stateliness of unshaken heroism with which he confronts insult and threats of torture and death, when, chained and baited by the soldiers, sarnem bids him down on his knees and beg for mercy. they try to force him to the ground, inciting one another with cowardly ferocity to strike him, put out his eyes, or lop off a limb. his bearing and the soul it revealed were such as corresponded with the descriptive comment wrung from the onlooking gesler:

"can i believe my eyes? he smiles. he grasps

his chains as he would make a weapon of them

to lay his smiter dead. what kind of man

is this, that looks in thraldom more at large

than they who lay it on him!

a heart accessible as his to trembling

the rock or marble hath. they more do fear

to inflict than he to suffer. each one calls

upon the other to accomplish that

himself hath not the manhood to begin.

he has brought them to a pause, and there they stand

like things entranced by some magician's spell,

wondering that they are masters of their organs

and not their faculties."

the third example is fearless defiance of tyrannical power, when, bound and helpless, he confronts the cowering gesler with

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majestic superiority. the austrian governor says, "ha, beware! think on thy chains!" tell replies, with swelling bosom and flashing eyes,—

"though they were doubled, and did weigh me down

prostrate to earth, methinks i could rise up

erect, with nothing but the honest pride

of telling thee, usurper, to the teeth,

thou art a monster! think upon my chains!

show me the link of them which, could it speak,

would give its evidence against my word.

think on my chains! 'they are my vouchers, which

i show to heaven, as my acquittance from

the impious swerving of abetting thee

in mockery of its lord!' think on my chains!

how came they on me?"

the fourth example is that of a grand, positive exultation in the moral beauty and glory of human nature in its undesecrated experiences. in response to the contemptible threat of the despot that his vengeance can kill, and that that is enough, tell raises his face proudly, stretches out his arm, and says, in rich, strong accents,—

"no: not enough:

it cannot take away the grace of life,—

its comeliness of look that virtue gives,—

its port erect with consciousness of truth,—

its rich attire of honorable deeds,—

its fair report that's rife on good men's tongues:

it cannot lay its hands on these, no more

than it can pluck his brightness from the sun,

or with polluted finger tarnish it."

the capacities of parental and filial affection in tragic pathos are wrought up by knowles in the last two acts with consummate and unrelenting skill. the varied interest and suspense of the dialogue and action between tell and albert are harrowing, as, neither knowing that the other is in the power of gesler, they are suddenly brought together. instinct teaches them to appear as strangers. the struggle to suppress their feelings and play their part under the imminent danger is followed with painful excitement as the plot thickens and the dread catastrophe seems hurrying. tell, ordered to instant execution, seeks to speak a few last words to his son, under the pretext of sending a farewell message to his albert by the stranger boy. in a voice

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whose condensed and tremulous murmuring betrays all the crucified tenderness it refuses to express, he says,—

"thou dost not know me, boy; and well for thee

thou dost not. i'm the father of a son

about thy age; i dare not tell thee where

to find him, lest he should be found of those

'twere not so safe for him to meet with. thou,

i see, wast born, like him, upon the hills:

if thou shouldst 'scape thy present thraldom, he

may chance to cross thee; if he should, i pray thee,

relate to him what has been passing here,

and say i laid my hand upon thy head,

and said to thee—if he were here, as thou art,

thus would i bless him: mayst thou live, my boy,

to see thy country free, or die for her

as i do!"

here he turns away with a slight convulsive movement mightily held down, and sarnem exclaims, "mark, he weeps!" the whole audience weep with him, too; as well they may, for the concentration of affecting circumstances in the scene forms one of the masterpieces of dramatic art. and forrest played it in every minute particular with an intensity of nature and a closeness of truth effective to all, but agonizing to the sympathetic. his last special stroke of art was the natural yet cunningly-prepared contrast between the extreme nervous anxiety and agitation that marked his demeanor through all the preliminary stages of the fearful trial-shot for life and liberty, and his final calmness. until the apple was on the head of his kneeling boy, and he had taken his position, he was all perturbation and misgiving. then this spirit seemed to pass out of him with an irresolute shudder, and instantly he confirmed himself into an amazing steadiness. every limb braced as marble, and as motionless, he stood, like a sculptured archer that looked life yet neither breathed nor stirred. the arrow flies, the boy bounds forward unhurt, with the transfixed apple in his hand. tell then slays gesler, and, dilating above the prostrated austrian banner, amidst universal exultation both on and off the stage, closes the play with the shouted words,—

"to arms! and let no sword be sheathed

until our land, from cliff to lake, is free!

free as our torrents are that leap our rocks,

or as our peaks that wear their caps of snow

in very presence of the regal sun!"

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damon.

the damon of forrest perhaps surpassed, in popular effect, all his other early performances. the romantic story of the devotion of the ancient greek pair of friends, as narrated by valerius maximus, has had a diffusion in literature and produced an impression on the imaginations of men almost without a parallel. this is because it appeals so penetratingly to a sentiment so deep and universal. above the mere materialized instincts of life there is hardly a feeling of the human heart so profound and vivid as the craving for a genuine, tender, and inviolable friendship. after all the disappointments of experience, after all the hardening results of custom, strife, and fraud, this desire still remains alive, however thrust back and hidden. remove the disguises and pretences, even of the aged and worldly-minded, and it is surprising in the souls of how many of them the spring of this baffled yet importunate desire will be found running and murmuring in careful concealment. in the hurry and worry of our practical age, so crowded with toil, rivalry, and distraction, the sentiment is less gratified in real life than ever, a fact which in many cases only makes the ideal still more attractive. accordingly, when the sacred old tale of the pythagorean friends was wrought into a play by banim and shiel, it struck the taste of the public at once. the play, too, had exceptional rhetorical merit, and was constructed with a simple plot, marked by a constant movement full of moral force and pathos.

forrest had seen the rôle of damon filled by cooper with transcendent dignity and energy, and the remembrance had been burned into his brain. it was one of the most finished and famous impersonations of that celebrated actor, who charged it with honest passion and clothed it with rugged grandeur. the representation by cooper, though unequal and careless, was so just in its general outlines to the idea of the author, that when forrest first hesitatingly essayed the character, he had as a disciple of truth, perforce, largely to repeat the example. but he came to the part with a fresher youth, a more concentrated nature, a keener ambition, and a more elaborate study; and, original in many details as well as in the more conscientious working up of the harmony of the different scenes, it was soon conceded that

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in the portrayal as a whole and in the unprecedented excitement it produced he had eclipsed his distinguished english forerunner on the american stage. he entered into the spirit and scenery of the subject with so intelligent and vehement an earnestness that he seemed not to act, but to be, damon, speaking the words spontaneously created in his soul on the spot, not uttering any memorized lesson. it was like a resurrection of syracuse, with the despot and his tools plotting the overthrow of its republican government, and the faithful friends seeking to prevent the success of the scheme. the spectators forgot that the sicilian city had vanished ages since, and dionysius and pythias and procles and calanthe all gone to dust. the reality was before them, and its living shapes moved and spoke to the spell-bound sense.

the damon of forrest was in every respect grandly conceived and grandly embodied. his noble form carried proudly aloft in weighty ease, clad in grecian garb, with long robe and sandals, corresponded with the justice and dignity of his soul. he was in no sense a sentimentalist or fanatic, but a man with intellect and heart balanced in conscience,—equally a patriot, a philosopher, and a friend,—his sentiments set in the great virtues of human nature loyal to the gods, his convictions and love not mere instincts but embedded in his reason and his honor. yet, trained as he had been in the lofty ethics of pythagoras, the austere discipline deadened not, but only curbed, the tremendous elemental passions of his being. beneath his cultivated stateliness and playfulness the impetuous volume and energy of his natural feelings made them, reposing, grand as mountains clad with verdure, aroused, terrible as volcanoes spouting fire. an inferior actor would be tempted to weaken or slur everything else in order to give the higher relief to the great central topic of friendship. it was the rare excellence of forrest that he gave as patient an attention and as sustained a treatment to the gravity and zealous devotion of the senator, the thoughtful habit of the scholar, the fondness of the husband and father, as he did to the touching affection of the friend, in his portraiture of damon.

he makes his appearance in the street, on his way to the senate, when he encounters a crowd of venal officers and soldiers thronging to the citadel, brandishing their swords and cheering

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for the despot. he says, with a musing air first, then quickly passing through indignant scorn to mournful expostulation,—

"then dionysius has o'erswayed it? well,

it is what i expected: there is now

no public virtue left in syracuse.

what should be hoped from a degenerate,

corrupted, and voluptuous populace,

when highly-born and meanly-minded nobles

would barter freedom for a great man's feast,

and sell their country for a smile? the stream

with a more sure eternal tendency

seeks not the ocean, than a sensual race

their own devouring slavery. i am sick

at my inmost heart of everything i see

and hear! o syracuse, i am at last

forced to despair of thee! and yet thou art

my land of birth,—thou art my country still;

and, like an unkind mother, thou hast left

the claims of holiest nature in my heart,

and i must sorrow for, not hate thee!"

the soldiery shout,—

"for dionysius! ho, for dionysius!

damon. silence, obstreperous traitors!

your throats offend the quiet of the city;

and thou, who standest foremost of these knaves,

stand back and answer me, a senator,

what have you done?"

and then he slowly leans towards them with dilating front, and sways the whole crowd away from him as if by the invisible momentum of some surcharging magnetism.

"procles. but that i know 'twill gall thee,

thou poor and talking pedant of the school

of dull pythagoras, i'd let thee make

conjecture from thy senses: but, in hope

'twill stir your solemn anger, learn from me,

we have ta'en possession of the citadel.

damon. patience, ye good gods! a moment's patience,

that these too ready hands may not enforce

the desperate precept of my rising heart,—

thou most contemptible and meanest tool

that ever tyrant used!"

[pg 214]

procles in a rage calls on his soldiers to advance and hew their upbraider in pieces. at this moment pythias enters, sees how affairs stand, and, hastening to the side of his friend, calls out,—

"back! back! i say. he hath his armor on,—

i am his sword, shield, helm; i but enclose

myself, and my own heart, and heart's blood, when

i stand before him thus.

damon. false-hearted cravens!

we are but two,—my pythias, my halved heart!—

my pythias, and myself! but dare come on,

ye hirelings of a tyrant! dare advance

a foot, or raise an arm, or bend a brow,

and ye shall learn what two such arms can do

amongst a thousand of you."

a brief altercation follows, and the mob are appeased and depart, leaving the two friends alone together. they proceed to unbosom themselves, fondly communing with each other, alike concerning the interests of the state and their private relations, especially the approaching marriage of pythias with the beautiful calanthe. the unstudied ease and loving confidence of the dialogue, in voice and manner, plainly revealing the history of love that joined their souls, their cherished luxury of interior trust and surrender to each other, formed an artistic and most pleasing contrast to the hot and rough passages which had preceded. and when the fair calanthe herself breaks in upon them, and damon, unbending still more from his senatorial absorption and philosophic solemnity, changes his affectionate familiarity with pythias into a sporting playfulness with her, the colloquial lightness and tender banter were a delightful bit of skill and nature, carrying the previous contrast to a still higher pitch. it was a lifting and lighting of the scene as gracious and sweet as sunshine smiling on flowers where the tempest had been frowning on rocks.

learning that the recreant servants of the state are about to confer the dictatorship of syracuse on dionysius, damon speeds to the capitol, to resist, and, if possible, defeat, the purpose. undaunted by the studious insolence of his reception, almost single-handed he maintains a long combat with the conspirators, battling their design step by step. it was a most exciting scene on all accounts, and was steadily marked by delicate gradations to a climax of overwhelming power. he wielded by turns all the

[pg 215]

weapons of argument, invective, persuasion, command, and defiance, exhibiting magnificent specimens of impassioned declamation, towering among the meaner men around him, an illuminated mould of heroic manhood whereon every god did seem to have set his seal.

finally, they pass the fatal vote, and cry,—

"all hail, then, dionysius the king.

damon. oh, all ye gods, my country! my country!

dionysius. and that we may have leisure to put on

with fitting dignity our garb of power,

we do now, first assuming our own right,

command from this, that was the senate-house,

those rash, tumultuous men, who still would tempt

the city's peace with wild vociferation

and vain contentious rivalry. away!

damon. i stand,

a senator, within the senate-house!

dion. traitor! and dost thou dare me to my face?

damon. traitor! to whom? to thee?—o syracuse,

is this thy registered doom? to have no meaning

for the proud names of liberty and virtue,

but as some regal braggart sets it down

in his vocabulary? and the sense,

the broad, bright sense that nature hath assigned them

in her infallible volume, interdicted

forever from thy knowledge; or if seen,

and known, and put in use, denounced as treasonable,

and treated thus?—no, dionysius, no!

i am no traitor! but, in mine allegiance

to my lost country, i proclaim thee one!

dion. my guards, there! ho!

damon. what! hast thou, then, invoked

thy satellites already?

dion. seize him!

damon. death's the best gift to one that never yet

wished to survive his country. here are men

fit for the life a tyrant can bestow!

let such as these live on."

forrest was so absolutely possessed by the sentiment of these passages, that if, instead of standing in the senate of syracuse and representing her little forlorn-hope of patriots, he had been standing in the capitol of the whole republican world as a representative of collective humanity, his delivery could not have been more proudly befitting and competent. such was the immense

[pg 216]

contagious flood of inspiration with which he was loaded, that repeatedly his audiences rose to their feet as one man and cheered him till the dust rose to the roof and the very walls seemed to quiver.

damon is cast into prison and doomed to die. the curtain rises on him seated at a table, writing a last testament to be given to pythias. the solitude, the stillness, the heavy hour, the retrospect of his life, the separation from all he loves, the nearness of death, combine to make his meditations profound and sad. the picture of man and fate which he then drew—so calm and grave and chaste, so relieved against the other scenes—was an exquisite masterpiece. he lays down his stylus. in an attitude of deep reflection—the left leg easily extended and the hand pendent by its side, the right leg drawn up even with the chair, his right elbow resting on the table, the hand supporting his slightly-bowed head, the opened eyes level and fixed, with a voice of manly and mournful music, every tone and accent faultless in its mellow and pellucid solemnity—he pronounces this soliloquy:

"existence! what is that? a name for nothing!

it is a cloudy sky chased by the winds,—

its fickle form no sooner chosen than changed!

it is the whirling of the mountain-flood,

which, as we look upon it, keeps its shape,

though what composed that shape, and what composes,

hath passed—will pass—nay, and is passing on

even while we think to hold it in our eyes,

and deem it there. fie! fie! a feverish vision,

a crude and crowded dream, unwilled, unbidden,

by the weak wretch that dreams it."

the effect was comparable to that of suddenly changing the scene from the clamorous multitude, bustle, and struggle of a noonday square to the midnight sky, with its eternal stars and moon shining on a lonely lake, whose serenity not a ripple or a rustling leaf disturbs.

pythias visits him in his dungeon. the interview is conducted in a manner so unaffected, so true to the finest feelings of the human heart, that few and hard indeed were the beholders who could remain unmoved. on the lamentation of damon that he is denied the satisfaction of pressing his wife and child to his

[pg 217]

bosom before he dies, pythias proposes to gain that privilege for him by being his hostage, if the tyrant will consent. he makes the request.

"dionysius. what wonder is this?

is he thy brother?

damon. not in the fashion that the world puts on,

but brother in the heart.

dion. oh, by the wide world, damocles,

i did not think the heart of man was moulded

to such a purpose."

six hours are granted damon in which to reach his villa on the mountain-side, four leagues distant, take his farewell, and return, assured that if he is not at the place of execution at the moment appointed the axe falls on his substitute.

the meeting with his hermion and their boy in the garden of his villa, his resolute adaptation of his manner to the untimely innocent prattle of the child, the various transitions of tone and topic, the pathos of the intermittent upbreaking of his concealed struggle, the gradual unveiling of the awful announcement of his impending destiny, the determined efforts at firmness in himself and consolation for her, the clinging and agonized farewell,—all these were managed with a truthfulness and a distinct setting to be attained by no player without the utmost patience of study added to the deepest sincerity of nature.

he has lingered to the latest allowable moment. hurrying out, he calls to his freedman, lucullus, "where is my horse?" and receives the following reply:

"when i beheld the means of saving you,

i could not hold my hand,—my heart was in it,

and in my heart the hope of giving life

and liberty to damon—and—

damon. go on!

i am listening to thee.

lucullus. and in hope to save you

i slew your steed.

damon. almighty heavens!"

an ordinary actor would have said "almighty heavens," at once; but forrest, seeming taken utterly by surprise, did not speak the words till he had for some time prepared the way for them by a display of bewildered astonishment, which revealed the

[pg 218]

workings of his brain so clearly that the spectators could scarcely believe that the actor was acquainted with the plot in advance. the facts of the situation seemed presenting themselves to his inner gaze in so many pictures,—the calamity, his broken promise, the disappointment and death of his friend, the dread dishonor,—and their expressions—wonder, rage, horror, despair, frenzy—visibly came out first in slow succession, then in chaotic mixture. at last the gathered tornado explodes in one burst of headlong wrath. every rigid muscle swollen, his convulsed face livid, his dilated eyes emitting sparks, with the crouch and spring of an infuriated tiger he plunges on the hapless lucullus and hoists him sheer in air. vain are the cries of the unfortunate wretch, idle his struggles. articulating with a terrible scream the words,—

"to the eternal river of the dead!

the way is shorter than to syracuse,—

'tis only far as yonder yawning gulf,—

i'll throw thee with one swing to tartarus,

and follow after thee!"—

his enraged master disappears with him in his grasp. the feelings of the audience, wound to an intolerable pitch, audibly give way in a long, loosened breath, as they sink into their seats with a huge rustle all over the house.

meanwhile, the fatal crisis nears, and damon, delayed by the loss of his steed, comes not. the stroke of time on the dial-plate against the temple dedicated to the goddess of fidelity moves unrelentingly forward. all is ready. the tyrant, his skepticism confirmed, is there, indignant at the soul that in its fling of proud philosophy had made him feel so outsoared and humbled. pythias, agitated between a dreadful suspicion of his friend and the fear of some unforeseen obstacle, parts with calanthe, and prepares for the beheading steel. a vast multitude on the hills stretch their long, blackening outline in the round of the blue heavens, and await the event.

"mute expectation spreads its anxious hush

o'er the wide city, that as silent stands

as its reflection in the quiet sea.

behold, upon the roof what thousands gaze

[pg 219]

toward the distant road that leads to syracuse.

an hour ago a noise was heard afar,

like to the pulses of the restless surge;

but as the time approaches, all grows still

as the wide dead of midnight!

a horse and rider in the distance,

by the gods! they wave their hats, and he returns it!

it is—no—that were too unlike—but there!"

damon rushes in, looks around, exclaims, exultingly,—

"ha! he is alive! untouched!"

and falls, with a hysterical laugh, exhausted by the superhuman exertions he has made to arrive in time. he soon rallies, and, when his name is pronounced, leaps upon the scaffold beside his friend; and all the god comes into him as, proudly erecting his form, he answers,—

"i am here upon the scaffold! look at me:

i am standing on my throne; as proud a one

as yon illumined mountain where the sun

makes his last stand; let him look on me too;

he never did behold a spectacle

more full of natural glory. death is— ha!

all syracuse starts up upon her hills,

and lifts her hundred thousand hands. she shouts,

hark, how she shouts! o dionysius!

when wert thou in thy life hailed with a peal

of hearts and hands like that one? shout again!

again! until the mountains echo you,

and the great sea joins in that mighty voice,

and old enceladus, the son of earth,

stirs in his mighty caverns. tell me, slaves,

where is your tyrant? let me see him now;

why stands he hence aloof? where is your master?

what is become of dionysius?

i would behold and laugh at him!

dionysius. behold me!

go, damocles, and bid a herald cry

wide through the city, from the eastern gate

unto the most remote extremity,

that dionysius, tyrant as he is,

gives back to damon life and freedom."

like one struggling out of a fearful dream, the phantom mists receding, horror expiring and brightening into joy, the great actor lifts himself, relaxes, staggers into the arms of his pythias, and the curtain sinks. the people, slowly scattering to their homes, do not easily or soon forget the mighty agitation they have undergone.

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brutus.

the two celebrated characters of early roman history, brutus and virginius, each the hero of a startling social revolution, as well as of an appalling domestic tragedy, in which personal affection is nobly sacrificed to public principle,—these imposing forms, each enveloped in his grand and solemn legend, stalking vivid and colossal in the shadows of antique time,—these sublime democratic idols of old rome, men of tempestuous passion and iron solidity, whose civic heroism was mated with private tenderness and crowned with judicial severity,—like statues of rock clustered with ivy and their heads wreathed in retributive lightnings,—both these personages in all their accompaniments were singularly well fitted for the ethical, passionate, single-minded, and ponderous individuality of forrest to impersonate with the highest sincerity and power. he achieved extraordinary success in them. there was in himself so much of the old roman pride, independence, concentrated and tenacious feeling, majestic and imperious weight, that it was not hard for him to steal the keys of history, enter the chambers of the past, and reanimate the heroic and revengeful masks. he did so, to the astonishment and delight of those who beheld the spectacle.

the play of "brutus, or the fall of tarquin," the best of the dramatic productions of john howard payne, has been greatly admired. its title rôle was a favorite one with kean, cooper, macready, booth, and forrest; and they all won laurels in it. the interest of the plot begins at once, and scarcely flags to the end. the murderous tyrant, tarquin, has forced his way to the throne through treason, poison, and gore, and holds remorseless rule, to the deep though muffled indignation and horror of the better citizens. his fears of the discontented patriots have led him to murder their master-spirit, marcus junius, and his eldest son. the younger son, lucius, escaped, and affected to have lost his reason, playing the part of a fool, and meanwhile abiding his time to avenge his family and his country. he kept his disguise so shrewdly that he was allowed to be much at court, a harmless butt for the mirth of the tyrant and his fellows.

forrest kept up the semblance of imbecility, the shambling gait, the dull eyes and vacant face, the sloppy, irresolute gestures, the apparent forgetfulness, with the closest truth. he had for

[pg 221]

years studied the traits and phases of these poor beings in visits to lunatic-asylums. but in the depicting of the fool there was some obvious unfitness of his heavy bearing, noble voice, and native majesty to the shallow and broken qualities of such a character. it did not appear quite spontaneous or natural. he clearly had to act it by will and effort. yet there was a sort of propriety even in this, as the part was professedly an assumed and pretended one. but when he cast off the vile cloud of idiocy and broke forth in his own patrician person, the effect of the foregone foil was manifest, and the new and perfect picture stood in luminous relief. when claudius and aruns had been badgering him, and had received some such pointed repartees as a fool will seem now and then to hit on by chance, as they went out he followed them with a look of superb contempt, and said, in an intonation of intense scorn wonderfully effective,—

"yet, 'tis not that which ruffles me,—the gibes

and scornful mockeries of ill-governed youth,—

or flouts of dastard sycophants and jesters,—

reptiles, who lay their bellies on the dust

before the frown of majesty!"

and the house was always electrified by the sudden transformation with which then, passing from the words,

"all this

i but expect, nor grudge to bear; the face

i carry, courts it!"

he towered into prouder dimensions, and, as one inspired, delivered himself in an outbreak of declamatory grandeur:

"son of marcus junius!

when will the tedious gods permit thy soul

to walk abroad in her own majesty,

and throw this visor of thy madness from thee,

to avenge my father's and my brother's murder?

had this been all, a thousand opportunities

i've had to strike the blow—and my own life

i had not valued at a rush.—but still—

there's something nobler to be done!—my soul,

enjoy the strong conception! oh! 'tis glorious

to free a groaning country,—

to see revenge

spring like a lion from the den, and tear

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these hunters of mankind! grant but the time,

grant but the moment, gods! if i am wanting,

may i drag out this idiot-feignéd life

to late old age, and may posterity

ne'er hear of junius but as tarquin's fool!"

the manner in which, in his fictitious rôle, in his interview with tullia, the parricidal queen, whose prophetic soul is ominously alive to every alarming hint, he veered along the perilous edges of his feigned and his real character, the sinister alternation of jest and portent, was a passage of exciting interest, sweeping the chords of the breast from sport to awe with facile and forceful hand. the same effect was produced in a still higher degree in the interview with his son titus, whose patriotism and temper he tested by lifting a little his false garb of folly and letting some tentative gleams of his true nature and purposes appear.

"brutus. i'll tell a secret to thee

worth a whole city's ransom. this it is:

nay, ponder it and lock it in thy heart:—

there are more fools, my son, in this wise world,

than the gods ever made.

titus. sayest thou? expound this riddle.

would the kind gods restore thee to thy reason—

brutus. then, titus, then i should be mad with reason.

had i the sense to know myself a roman,

this hand should tear this heart from out my ribs,

ere it should own allegiance to a tyrant.

if, therefore, thou dost love me, pray the gods

to keep me what i am. where all are slaves,

none but the fool is happy.

titus. we are romans—

not slaves—

brutus. not slaves? why, what art thou?

titus. thy son.

dost thou not know me?

brutus. you abuse my folly.

i know thee not.—wert thou my son, ye gods,

thou wouldst tear off this sycophantic robe,

tuck up thy tunic, trim these curléd locks

to the short warrior-cut, vault on thy steed,

then, scouring through the city, call to arms,

and shout for liberty!

titus. [starts.] defend me, gods!

brutus. ha! does it stagger thee?"

the simulation had been dropped so gradually, the unconsciously waxing earnestness of purpose and self-betrayal were

[pg 223]

carried up over such invisible and exquisite steps, that, when the electric climax was touched, he who confronted brutus on the stage did not affect to be more startled than those who gazed on him from before it really were.

finding his son is in love with the sister of sextus, and in no ripe mood for dangerous enterprise, he turns sorrowfully from him, murmuring,—

"said i for liberty? i said it not.

my brain is weak, and wanders. you abuse it."

when left alone, he soliloquizes, beginning with sorrow, and passing in the succeeding parts from sadness to repulsion, then to anxiety, afterwards to hope, and ending with an air of proud joy.

"i was too sudden. i should have delayed

and watched a surer moment for my purpose.

he must be frighted from his dream of love.

what! shall the son of junius wed a tarquin?

as yet i've been no father to my son,—

i could be none; but, through the cloud that wraps me,

i've watched his mind with all a parent's fondness,

and hailed with joy the junian glory there.

could i once burst the chains which now enthrall him,

my son would prove the pillar of his country,—

dear to her freedom as he is to me."

few things in the history of the stage have been superior in its way to what forrest made the opening of the third act in brutus. it is deep night in rome, thunder and lightning, the capitol in the background, in front an equestrian statue of tarquinius superbus. brutus enters, revolving in his breast the now nearly complete scheme for overthrowing the despot. appearance, thoughts, words, voice, manner, all in strict keeping with the time and place, he speaks:

"slumber forsakes me, and i court the horrors

which night and tempest swell on every side.

launch forth thy thunders, capitolian jove!

put fire into the languid souls of men;

let loose thy ministers of wrath amongst them,

and crush the vile oppressor! strike him down,

ye lightnings! lay his trophies in the dust!

[storm increases.

ha! this is well! flash, ye blue-forkéd fires!

loud-bursting thunders, roar! and tremble, earth!

[a violent crash of thunder, and the statue of tarquin, struck

by a flash, is shattered to pieces.

[pg 224]

what! fallen at last, proud idol! struck to earth!

i thank you, gods! i thank you! when you point

your shafts at human pride, it is not chance,

'tis wisdom levels the commissioned blow.

but i,—a thing of no account—a slave,—

i to your forkéd lightnings bare my bosom

in vain,—for what's a slave—a dastard slave?

a fool, a brutus? [storm increases.] hark! the storm rides on!

strange hopes possess my soul. my thoughts grow wild.

i'll sit awhile and ruminate."

seating himself on a fragment of the fallen statue, in contemplative attitude, his great solitary presence, blending with the entire scene, presented a tableau of the most sombre and romantic beauty.

valerius enters. brutus cautiously probes his soul, and is rejoiced to find him worthy of confidence. as they commune on the degradation of their country, the crimes of the royal family, and the hopes of speedy redemption, we seem to feel the sultry smother and to hear the muffled rumble of the rising storm of an outraged people. as valerius departs, tarquin himself advances, and gives a new momentum to the movement for his own destruction. still supposing brutus to be an imbecile, with shameless garrulity he boasts of the fiendish violence he has done to lucretia, the wife of collatinus, and the near kinswoman of brutus himself. this woman was of such transcendent loveliness and nobility of person and soul as to have become a poetic ideal of her sex throughout the civilized world in all the ages since. while tarquin boastfully described his deed, the effect on his auditor was terrific to see. the inward struggle was fully pictured without, in the hands convulsively clutched, the eyes starting from their sockets, the blood threatening to burst through the swollen veins of the neck and temples. finally, the quivering earthquake of passion broke in an explosion of maniacal abandonment.

"the fiends curse you, then! lash you with snakes!

when forth you walk, may the red flaming sun

strike you with livid plagues!

vipers, that die not, slowly gnaw your heart!

may earth be to you but one wilderness!

may you hate yourself,—

for death pray hourly, yet be in tortures,

millions of years expiring!"

[pg 225]

he shrieked this fearful curse upon the shrinking criminal with a frenzied energy which so amazed and stirred the audience that sometimes they gave vent to their excitement in a simultaneous shout of applause, sometimes by looking at one another in silence or whispering, "wonderful!"

lucretia, unwilling to survive the purity of her name, has stabbed herself. collatinus rushes wildly in with the bloody steel in his hand, and tells the tale of horror:

"she's dead! lucretia's dead! this is her blood!

howl, howl, ye men of rome.

ye mighty gods, where are your thunders now?"

brutus, the full gale of oratoric fire and splendor swelling his frame and lighting his features, seizes the dagger, lifts it aloft, and exclaims:

"heroic matron!

now, now, the hour is come! by this one blow

her name's immortal, and her country saved!

hail, dawn of glory! hail, thou sacred weapon!

virtue's deliverer, hail! this fatal steel,

empurpled with the purest blood on earth,

shall cut your chains of slavery asunder.

hear, romans, hear! did not the sibyl tell you

a fool should set rome free? i am that fool:

brutus bids rome be free!

valerius. what can this mean?

brutus. it means that lucius junius has thrown off

the mask of madness, and his soul rides forth

on the destroying whirlwind, to avenge

the wrongs of that bright excellence and rome.

[sinks on his knees.]

hear me, great jove! and thou, paternal mars,

and spotless vesta! to the death, i swear,

my burning vengeance shall pursue these tarquins!

ne'er shall my limbs know rest till they are swept

from off the earth which groans beneath their infamy!

valerius, collatine, lucretius, all,

be partners in my oath."

the above apostrophe to the dagger was marvellously delivered. as he held it up with utmost stretch of arm and addressed it, it seemed to become a living thing, an avenging divinity.

the next scene was given with a contrast that came like enchantment. a multitude of relatives and friends are celebrating

[pg 226]

the obsequies of lucretia. brutus, with solemn and gentle mien, and a delivery of funereal gloom in which admiring love and pride gild the sorrow, pronounces her eulogy. he paints her with a bright and sweet fondness, and bewails her fate with a closing cadence indescribably plaintive.

"such perfections

might have called back the torpid breast of age

to long-forgotten rapture: such a mind

might have abashed the boldest libertine,

and turned desire to reverential love

and holiest affection. oh, my countrymen!

you all can witness when that she went forth

it was a holiday in rome; old age

forgot its crutch, labor its task,—all ran;

and mothers, turning to their daughters, cried,

'there, there's lucretia!' now, look ye, where she lies,

that beauteous flower by ruthless violence torn!

gone! gone! gone!

all. sextus shall die! but what for the king, his father?

brutus. seek you instruction? ask yon conscious walls,

which saw his poisoned brother, saw the incest

committed there, and they will cry. revenge!

ask yon deserted street, where tullia drove

o'er her dead father's corse, 'twill cry, revenge!

ask yonder senate-house, whose stones are purple

with human blood, and it will cry, revenge!

go to the tomb where lies his murdered wife,

and the poor queen, who loved him as her son,

their unappeaséd ghosts will shriek, revenge!

the temples of the gods, the all-viewing heavens,

the gods themselves, shall justify the cry,

and swell the general sound, revenge! revenge!"

the instant change, in that presence of death, from the subdued, mournful manner to this tremendous burst of blazing eloquence was a consummate marvel of oratoric effect, in which art and nature were at odds which was the greater element. it might be said of forrest in this scene,—as corunna in the play itself described to horatius the action of brutus,—

"he waved aloft the bloody dagger,

and spoke as if he held the souls of men

in his own hand and moulded them at pleasure.

they looked on him as they would view a god.

[pg 227]

who, from a darkness which invested him,

sprang forth, and, knitting his stern brow in frowns,

proclaimed the vengeful will of angry jove."

the throng are so possessed with him that they propose to make him king in place of tarquin; but the patriot, his unselfish soul breathing from his countenance and audible in his accent, convinces them of his personal purity:

"no, fellow-citizens!

if mad ambition in this guilty frame

had strung one kingly fibre,—yea, but one,—

by all the gods, this dagger which i hold

should rip it out, though it entwined my heart.

now take the body up. bear it before us

to tarquin's palace; there we'll light our torches,

and, in the blazing conflagration, rear

a pile for these chaste relics, that shall send

her soul amongst the stars. on!"

they sweep away to their victims, deliver the state, and seal an ample vengeance.

the primary climax of the play has thus been reached. brutus has emerged from his idiot concealment and vindicated himself as the successful champion of liberty and his country. he is next to appear in a second climax, of still greater intensity and height, by the personal sacrifice of himself as the martyr of duty. the first action has the superior national significance, but the second action has the superior human significance, and therefore properly succeeds. titus, the only son of the liberator, corrupted by his love of power and pleasure, has, in a measure, joined the party of the tarquins. he is therefore regarded by the victor patriots as a traitor to rome. brutus, torn between his parental affection and his public duty, is profoundly agitated, yet resolute. he spares the life of tarquinia, the betrothed of titus, at the same time warning him,—

"this i concede; but more if thou attemptest,—

by all the gods!—nay, if thou dost not take

her image, though with smiling cupids decked,

and pluck it from thy heart, there to receive

rome and her glories in without a rival,

thou art no son of mine, thou art no roman!"

for the defective treatment of the theme of the love of brutus for his son by the author the actor made the very best amends in

[pg 228]

his power by improving every opportunity to suggest the depth and fervor of the tie, in look and gesture and tone, in order to exalt the coming catastrophe. seated calmly in the curule chair as consul, robed with purple, the lictors with their uplifted axes before him, a messenger announces the seizure of a young man at the head of an insurgent band. valerius whispers to brutus,—

"oh, my friend, horror invades my heart.

i know thy soul, and pray the gods to put

thee to no trial beyond a mortal bearing."

mastering his agitation by a mighty effort, brutus responds,—

"no, they will not,—they cannot."

the unhappy titus is brought in guarded. the father, all his convulsed soul visible in his countenance and motions, turns from him, rises, walks to his colleague, and says, with tremulous, sobbing voice,—

"that youth, my titus, was my age's hope,—

i loved him more than language can express,—

i thought him born to dignify the world."

the culprit kneels to him, and begs for clemency:

"a word for pity's sake. before thy feet,

humbled in soul, thy son and prisoner kneels.

love is my plea: a father is my judge;

nature my advocate!—i can no more:

if these will not appease a parent's heart,

strike through them all, and lodge thy vengeance here!"

almost overpowered, brutus hesitates a moment, rallies, straightens himself up, and exclaims, with lofty dignity,—

"break off! i will not, cannot hear thee further!

the affliction nature hath imposed on brutus,

brutus will suffer as he may.—enough!

lictors, secure your prisoner. point your axes.

to the senate—on!"

the last scene shows the senate in the temple of mars, brutus in the consular seat. he speaks, beginning with solemn air and tones of ringing firmness:

[pg 229]

"romans the blood which hath been shed this day

hath been shed wisely. traitors, who conspire

against mature societies, may urge

their acts as bold and daring; and though villains,

yet they are manly villains. but to stab

the cradled innocent, as these have done,—

to strike their country in the mother-pangs

of struggling childbirth, and direct the dagger

to freedom's infant throat,—is a deed so black

that my foiled tongue refuses it a name."

here he pauses, falters a little, then slowly adds,—

"there is one criminal still left for judgment:

let him approach."

titus is led in by the lictors, with the edges of their axes turned towards him. he kneels.

"oh, brutus! brutus! must i call you father,

yet have no token of your tenderness?

brutus. think that i love thee by my present passion,

by these unmanly tears, these earthquakes here,

let these convince you that no other cause

could force a father thus to wrong his nature.

romans, forgive this agony of grief,—

my heart is bursting,—nature must have way.

i will perform all that a roman should,—

i cannot feel less than a father ought!"

the piteous look and choking accents with which he said to his son, "think that i love thee by my present passion," were irresistible. they seemed to betoken that his heart was breaking. the sound of weeping was usually audible in the audience, and hundreds might be seen wiping the tears from their cheeks.

justice holds its course, and the consul sentences the guilty citizen to the block:

"brutus. the sovereign magistrate of injured rome

condemns

a crime, thy father's bleeding heart forgives.

go,—meet thy death with a more manly courage

than grief now suffers me to show in parting;

and, while she punishes, let rome admire thee!

farewell!

titus. farewell forever!

brutus. forever! lictors, lead your prisoner forth.

[pg 230]

my hand shall wave the signal for the axe;

then let the trumpet's sound proclaim its fall.

poor youth! thy pilgrimage is at an end!

a few sad steps have brought thee to the brink

of that tremendous precipice, whose depth

no thought of man can fathom. justice now

demands her victim! a little moment,

and i am childless.—one effort, and 'tis past!—

justice is satisfied, and rome is free!"

forrest made the finale an artistic climax of superlative originality, finish, and power. he climbs the steps of the tribune to wave his hand, as agreed, in signal for the execution. his face grows pale. he struggles to lift his arm. then, when the trumpet announces that the deed is done, he absently wraps his head up in his toga, as if it were something separate from his body which must not know what has taken place. suddenly his whole form relaxes and sinks heavily on the stage.

virginius.

the rôle of virginius, as filled by forrest, had, with many resemblances to that of brutus, also many important differences. in the domestic pictures of the first part, the sacred innocence and artless ways of the motherless daughter and the overflowing fondness of the widowed father, an element of more varied and tender beauty is introduced. the play has a wider range of interest than that of brutus, and, while more attractive in some portions, is quite as terrible in others. to the perfecting of his performance of it forrest devoted as much study and labor as to any part he ever acted. it obtained a commensurate recognition and approval from the general public. in its outlines as a piece of physical realism his rendering of virginius was as pronounced as that of his brutus, and in its artistic finish as an example of imaginative portraiture it was unquestionably far superior. in addition to the exceptional power with which the central motives were presented, there were incidental features of extreme felicity. for instance, the vein of sarcasm which virginius displays towards the decemvirs and their party was worked with a master-hand, and the friendship for the crabbed but brave and good old dentatus was exhibited with a careless and bluff cordiality direct from nature. as a complete picture of the antique passion and sublime

[pg 231]

strength of the roman character, the whole performance stood forth in pre-eminent distinctness and vitality.

w. g. jackman

edwin forrest as

virginius.

sometimes, as an artist is lifting the curtain to expose his picture to view, with the removal of the first corner of drapery the connoisseur catches a glimpse of an exquisite bit of drawing and color which convinces him that the entire work is a great and beautiful one. when forrest made his entrance in virginius, with an irritated and impetuous air, the earliest sound of his voice, so deep and resonant, coining and propelling its words in air with such easy and percussive precision, seized the attention of the auditory and gave assurance that something uncommon was to come. with a quick articulation and an expostulating tone he said, "why did you make him decemvir, and first decemvir, too?" he refers to the shameless appius claudius, and the key-note of the play is struck by his inflection of the words.

he is not displeased on seeing reason for suspecting that his daughter—an only and idolized child left him by his dead wife—is in love with the noble young lucius icilius, for whom he has an excellent liking. he sends for virginia, who is still a schoolgirl, that he may question her. she comes in, and sits upon his knee, saying, "well, father, what is your will?" at the sight of her his face lights as if a sunbeam had suddenly fallen on it, and his voice has a sweet, low, half-smothered tone, as if the words were spoken in his heart, and only their softened echoes came forth:

"virginius. i wished to see you,

to ask you of your tasks,—how they go on,—

and what your masters say of you,—what last

you did. i hope you never play

the truant?

virginia. the truant! no, indeed, virginius.

virginius. i am sure you do not. kiss me!

virginia. oh! my father,

i am so happy when you are kind to me!

virginius. you are so happy when i'm kind to you!

am i not always kind? i never spoke

an angry word to you in all my life,

virginia! you are happy when i'm kind!

that's strange; and makes me think you have some reason

to fear i may be otherwise than kind."

the parental tenderness of his manner, his speech, his kiss, seemed to combine the love of a father and a mother in one. his

[pg 232]

hand meanwhile was playing with her tresses in a way suggestive of unpurposed instinctive fondness, exquisitely touching.

the transition was perfect when, meeting icilius, after scrutinizing him earnestly, as though to read his very soul, the rough soldier and honest man succeeds to the adoring father:

"icilius!

thou seest this hand? it is a roman's, boy;

'tis sworn to liberty,—it is the friend,

of honor. dost thou think so?

icilius. do i think

virginius owns that hand?

virginius. then you'll believe

it has an oath deadly to tyranny,

and is the foe of falsehood! by the gods,

knew it the lurking-place of treason, though

it were a brother's heart, 'twould drag the caitiff

forth. dar'st thou take this hand?"

and when, a little later, he led his daughter to her lover and formally betrothed them in these eloquent words, his whole frame betraying the struggle at composure, it was a consummate moral painting of humanity in one of its most sacred aspects:

"didst thou but know, young man,

how fondly i have watched her, since the day

her mother died, and left me to a charge

of double duty bound,—how she hath been

my pondered thought by day, my dream by night,

my prayer, my vow, my offering, my praise,

my sweet companion, pupil, tutor, child!—

thou wouldst not wonder that my drowning eye

and choking utterance upbraid my tongue

that tells thee she is thine!"

the plot progresses, and the air is thick with the clamor and strife of rome, the hates of parties and the reverberation of war. virginius is called to a distance with the army. his daughter is left under the guardianship of her uncle. one day the lustful appius has a sight of her passing in the street.

"her young beauty,

trembling and blushing 'twixt the striving kisses

of parting spring and meeting summer,"

inflames him. he charges one of his minions to seize her, under

[pg 233]

the pretext that she is the child of one of his slaves, sold to virginius and falsely proclaimed his daughter. with details of cruel atrocity the deed is accomplished, in spite of the desperate interference of icilius. lucius is sent as a messenger to the camp to inform virginius. lucius tells him he is wanted immediately at rome. with a start and a look of dread anxiety he demands to know wherefore. the messenger prevaricates and delays, but, on being chided and commanded to speak out, says, "hear me, then, with patience." virginius replies, while his restless fingers and the working of his toes, seen through the openings of his sandals, most effectually contradict the words, "well, i am patient."

"lucius. your virginia—

virginius. stop, my lucius!

i am cold in every member of my frame!

if 'tis prophetic, lucius, of thy news,

give me such token as her tomb would,—silence.

i'll bear it better.

lucius. you are still—

virginius. i thank thee, jupiter, i am still a father!"

the change of his countenance while uttering the word "father," from the expression it wore on the word "silence," was like an unexpected sunburst through a gloomy cloud. as lucius went on in his narration, the breathing of the listener thickened with intensity of suspense, his heart beat with remittent throb, and he started at each point in the outrage like one receiving electric shocks.

he departed for rome, where his poor daughter was guarded in the house of her uncle, numitorius, in the deepest distress and terror. he entered; and such was his expression as he cried, "my child! my child!" and she rushed into his arms, that there were scarcely ever many dry eyes in the theatre at that moment. then it was something divine to be seen, and never to be forgotten, to behold how he turned from his blistering and disdainful apostrophe to the villain who had dared set his panders after her, and, taking her precious head in his hands, gazed in her face, saying,—

"i never saw you look so like your mother

in all my life!

virginia. you'll be advised, dear father?

[pg 234]

virginius. it was her soul,—her soul, that played just then

about the features of her child, and lit them

into the likeness of her own. when first

she placed thee in my arms,—i recollect it

as a thing of yesterday!—she wished, she said,

that it had been a man. i answered her,

it was the mother of a race of men.

and paid her for thee with a kiss. her lips

are cold now,—could they but be warmed again,

how they would clamor for thee!

virginia. my dear father,

you do not answer me! will you not be advised?

virginius. i will not take him by the throat and strangle him!

but i could do it! i could do it!"

they go to the forum, where appius is seated on the tribunal, supported by the lictors and an armed troop. the acting of forrest in the trial-scene that followed was as genuine and moving, set in as bold relief, as anything the american theatre has known. who that saw him can ever forget the imperial front with which, bearing virginia on his arm, he advanced before the judgment-seat,—the firm step, the indomitable face, the parental love that seemed to throw a thousand invisible tendrils around his child to hold her up! the tableau caused a silence that was absolute, and was maintained so long that the suspense had begun to be painful, when the kingly voice of virginius broke the spell:

"does no one speak? i am defendant here!

is silence my opponent? fit opponent

to plead a cause too foul for speech! what brow

shameless, gives front to this most valiant cause,

that tries its prowess 'gainst the honor of

a girl, yet lacks the wit to know that they

who cast off shame should likewise cast off fear!"

the strong, lucid, cutting tones in which these words were spoken went vibrating into the breasts of the listeners, and thrilled them with sympathetic echoes. the perjured witness was summoned by the recreant judge. and the next passage of the play had a moral meaning deep enough, and was represented with a truth and power grand enough, to turn the stage for the time being into a pulpit and make the world tremble at its preaching.

"virginius. and are you the man

that claims my daughter for his slave?—look at me,

and i will give her to thee.

[pg 235]

claudius. she is mine, then:

do i not look at you?

virginius. your eye does, truly,

but not your soul.—i see it, through your eye,

shifting and shrinking,—turning every way

to shun me. you surprise me, that your eye,

so long the bully of its master, knows not

to put a proper face upon a lie,

but gives the port of impudence to falsehood

when it would pass it off for truth. your soul

dares as soon show its face to me!"

now the interest grows yet intenser and the influence of the actor yet more penetrating in its simplicity and terrible beauty. virginius finds that nothing can save his daughter from the last profanation of the tyrant except her immediate immolation by himself. for a moment he is lost in a reverie, striving to think what he can do. by chance he perceives a knife lying on the stall of a butcher. at the sight of this providential instrument an electric change passes over his face, revealing all his purpose with a grim joy, like the lightning-flash at night illumining the murky sky and giving an instantaneous outline of the clouds loaded with the coming storm. he moves gradually towards the stall, smiling on virginia a tender smile, full of the consolation he sees in the prospect of her deliverance even by death. he pats her lovingly on the shoulder while changing her from his left arm, that with it he may reach the knife. he stealthily seizes it and passes it behind him from the left hand to the right. with deep fondness he breathes, "my dear virginia," and gives her quick and fervent kisses, which he appears striving to press into her very soul. tears seem to moisten his words,—

"there is one only way to save thine honor,—

'tis this!"

and, swift as motion of the human arm can make it, the knife pierces her heart. the storm has burst, the lightning has wreathed its folds around the consecrated instrument of the work, and now the thunder-tones of his voice crash through the theatre in the awful exclamation,—

"lo, appius! with this innocent blood

[pg 236]

i do devote thee to the infernal gods!

make way there!

if they dare

to tempt the desperate weapon that is maddened

with drinking my daughter's blood, why, let them.

thus, thus it rushes in amongst them. way, there!"

his exit here used to excite the wildest huzzas, the men in the pit standing with their hats in their uplifted hands, and the women in the boxes waving their handkerchiefs.

virginius heads the revolution, in which the revolted troops and the commons join. the tyranny is hurled to the dust, the people freed, and appius lodged in prison. but the wronged and wretched father is broken down by the preternatural horror and excitement he has undergone, and loses his reason. he is next seen in his own desolate home, with a pale and haggard face, and a look half wild, half dreamy, talking to himself:

"'tis ease! 'tis ease! i am content! 'tis peace,—

'tis anything that is most soft and quiet.

and after such a dream! i want my daughter.

send me my daughter! will she come, or not?

i'll call myself. virginia!"

his call of virginia was a call dictated by a dethroned mind. it was a sound that appeared to come from a mysterious vault. there was a kind of semi-wakefulness in it, like the utterance of a thought in a dream. it had a touch of pity. it was an inverted form of sound, that turned back whence it issued and fell dead where it was born, feeling that there was no reply for it to keep it alive. yet, after a pause, he fancies he hears her answering; and he rapidly asks,—

"is it a voice, or nothing, answers me?

i hear a sound so fine there's nothing lives

'twixt it and silence."

and then, with an entranced listening, he follows the illusory voice around to different parts of the room, in the vain attempt to find its source. an apathetic stare, a blank, miserable stupor, succeeds, soon broken by the fancy that he hears her shrieking in the prison for rescue from appius,—and he darts away. appius, meanwhile, is planning an escape, and gloatingly counting over in imagination the victims he will pick out to expiate for his

[pg 237]

present shame, when the shattered virginius, appalling even in his ruins, rushes in upon him, wildly crying, "give me my daughter!" the affrighted prisoner replies,—

"i know nothing of her, virginius, nothing.

virginius. do you tell me so?

vile tyrant! think you, shall i not believe

my own eyes before your tongue? why, there she is!

there at your back,—her locks dishevelled, and

her vestment torn,—her cheeks all faded with

her pouring tears.

villain! is this a sight to show a father?

and have i not a weapon to requite thee?"

in his distraught fury, feeling over his body for some weapon he discovers his own hands. a wild and eager delight shudders through him as, holding these naked instruments before him, he springs on the terrified appius and strangles him to death. lucius, icilius, and numitorius enter, bearing the urn of virginia. the wronged father and sufferer looks up, and sighs, with a bewildered gaze,—

"what a load my heart has heaved off! where is he?

i thought i had done it."

they call him by name. he makes no response. icilius places the urn in his right hand, with the single word, "virginia." he looks at icilius and the urn, at numitorius and lucius, seems struck by their mourning garb, looks again at the urn, breaks into a passion of tears, and falls on the neck of icilius, exclaiming, "virginia!"

metamora.

jas bannister

edwin forrest as

metamora.

the famous prize-play of metamora, by john augustus stone, is not a work of much genius, and if published would have no literary rank; yet it had all that was essential, in the striking merit of furnishing the genius of the enactor of its leading character the conditions for compassing a popular success of the most remarkable description. with his performance of metamora, forrest impressed the masses of the american people in a degree rarely precedented, and won a continental celebrity full of idiomatic enthusiasm. of course there were good reasons for this warm favor from the surrendered many, despite the disdain of the squeamish few, who can generally enjoy nothing, only conceitedly criticise everything.

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in the first place, the subject was indigenous, and thus came home to the american heart and curiosity. in the imagination of our people for more than a century the race of the aborigines of the land were clothed with romantic associations and regretted with a sort of national remorse. the disinterestedness of the fancy and the soul, relieved from all proximity to their squalor, ferocity, and vice, with a beautiful pity lamented their wrongs, their evanescence, and the rapid disappearance of the wigwam and papoose and war-dance and canoe of the painted tribes from hill and glen and wood and lake. in this wide-spread sentimental interest the play took hold of powerful chords. although prosaic research and experience have so largely divested the character of the indian of its old romance and made his actual presence a nuisance, nevertheless so long as the memories of our primeval settlements and of our bloody and adventurous frontier traditions shall live, so long will the american indian be remembered with a sigh as the lost human poetry of the nature wherein he was cradled.

furthermore, the play was stocked with fresh suggestions and images of nature,—a store-house of those simple metaphors drawn direct from the great objects of the universe, full of a rude pathos and sublimity, and so natural to the genius of indian chief and orator in their talk. there was a piquance of novelty and a refreshing charm to people—hived in towns and cities, and, stifled with artificial customs, almost oblivious of any direct contact of their senses with the solemn elementary phenomena of the surrounding universe—in hearing metamora speak, in a voice that echoed and painted them, of the woods, the winds, the sun, the cliffs, the torrents, the lakes, the sea, the stars, the thunder, the meadows and the clouds, the wild animals and the singing birds. the meaning of the words so fitly intoned by the player awoke in the nerves of the audience dim reminiscences of ancestral experiences reverberating out of far ages forgotten long ago, and they were bound by a spell themselves understood not.

and then there was the interest of a style of character and life, of an idealized historic picture of a vanished form of human nature and society, all whose elements stood in strange and fascinating contrast with the personal experience of the beholders. it was the first time the american indian had ever been dramatized and put on the stage; and this was done in a theme based on

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one of the romantic episodes of his history embodied in a chieftain of tragic greatness.

in a production of art whose subject and materials lie in the domain of unreclaimed nature, genius is not, indeed, permitted to falsify any fundamental principle or fact, but is free to modify and add. otherwise, the creative function of art is gone, and only imitation left. in this respect of combined truth and originality, the acted metamora of forrest was a wonder never surpassed, in its own kind, in the long story of the stage. he appeared the kingly incarnation of the spirit of the scene, both of the outward landscape and of the taciturn tribe that peopled it with their gliding shapes. he appeared the human lord of the dark wood and the rocky shore, and the natural ruler of their untutored tenants; the soul of the eloquent recital, the noble appeal, and the fiery harangue; the embodiment of a rude magnanimity, a deep domestic love, an unquivering courage and fortitude, an instinctive patriotism and sense of justice, and a relentless revenge. he appeared, too, the votary of a superstition of singular attractiveness, blooming with the native wild-flowers of the human mind, a faith so unaffected and open that it seemed to be read by the stars of the great spirit as they looked down on the lone indian kneeling by the mound of his fathers, the hunted patriot lying in ambush for his foes. through all this physically-realized, wondrous portraiture of the poetic, the tender, the noble, the awful, the reverential, was mingled the glare of the crouching tiger. it was thus that forrest in his great creation of metamora rendered all that there was in the naturalistic poem of indian life, to all that there was justly adding an infusion of that ideal quality by which art appeals to the nobler feelings of admiration and sympathy in preference to the meaner ones of hate and scorn. in this performance he elaborated a picture of the legendary and historic american indian which to this day stands alone beyond all rivalry.

never did an actor more thoroughly identify and merge himself with his part than forrest did in metamora. he was completely transformed from what he appeared in other characters, and seemed indian in every particular, all through and all over, from the crown of his scalp to the sole of his foot. the carriage of his body, the inflections of his voice, his facial expressions, the

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very pose of his head and neck on his shoulders, were new. for he had recalled all his observations while on his visit with push-ma-ta-ha among the choctaws, when he had adopted their habits, eaten their food, slept in their tents, echoed the crack of his rifle over the surface of their lakes, and left the print of his moccasins on their hunting-grounds. he had also patiently studied their characteristics from all other available sources. accordingly, when he came to impersonate metamora, or the last of the wampanoags, modelled by the author of the play after that celebrated new england sachem, the son of massasoit, known in history as king philip of pokanoket, it was the genuine indian who was brought upon the stage, merely idealized a little in some of his moral features. the attributes unnoticed by careless observers were distinctly shown,—the sudden muscular movements, the repressed emotion, the peculiar mode of breathing, the deep and vigorous gutturals flung out from the muscular base of the abdomen, and the straight or slightly inward-pointing line of the footfall. with a profound truth to fact, the general bearing of metamora on ordinary occasions was marked by a dull monotony of manner, broken with awkward abruptness, and his grand poses were limited to those times of great excitement when the human organism, if in a state of dynamic surcharge, is spontaneously electrified with heroic lines, and becomes an instrument with which impersonal passions or the laws of nature gesticulate.

with the single and very proper exception of this partially heightened moral refinement, the counterfeit was so cunningly copied that it might have deceived nature herself. many a time delegations of indian tribes who chanced to be visiting the cities where he acted this character—boston, new york, washington, baltimore, cincinnati, new orleans—attended the performance, adding a most picturesque feature by their presence, and their pleasure and approval were unqualified. a large delegation of western indians, seated in the boxes of the old tremont theatre on such an occasion, were so excited by the performance that in the closing scene they rose and chanted a dirge in honor of the death of the great chief.

this incident recalls one which happened in the earliest theatre in philadelphia, when mrs. whitelock, the sister of mrs. siddons, was playing, and when washington was present. at the begin

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ning of the performance a group of indians, who had come from the wilderness to conclude a treaty, made their appearance in the pit in their native costume. the dark, tall, gaunt figures glided in, and, without noticing the audience or seeming to hear the claps of welcome which greeted them, seated themselves, and fixed their eyes on the stage, as unchangingly as if they were petrified. they sat through the chief play like statues, with immovable tranquillity. but in the after-piece an artificial elephant was introduced, which so electrified these sons of the forest that they suddenly sprang up with a cry. they said there had once been a great beast like this in their land. the next day they called on the manager, inspected the mammoth of sticks, pasteboard, and cloth, and asked to see by daylight the heavenly women who had appeared on the stage the previous night.

the opening scene of metamora was a glen, with ledges of stone, trees, bushes, running vines, and flowers, the leading character seen, in his picturesque, aboriginal costume, standing on the highest rock in an attitude that charmed the eye. leaning forward on his firmly-planted right foot, the left foot thrown easily back on its tip, he had a bow in his hands, with the arrow sprung to its head. as the arrow sped from the twanging string he raised his eyes with eager gaze after it, gave a deep interjection, "hah!" bounded upon a rock below, and vanished. in a few moments he re-entered, with his left arm bleeding, as if it had been bitten in a struggle with a wild beast. oceana, a white maiden, passing, sees his wound and offers him her scarf to bind it up. the mother of oceana had once befriended massasoit when he was sick. metamora, in his gratitude, had visited her grave with offerings for the dead, and, on such an occasion, had rescued oceana from a panther. he hesitates before accepting, and fills the delay with a by-play of pantomime so true to indian nature, so new and strange to the spectators, that it was invested with an absorbing interest. at length he says, "metamora will take the white maiden's gift." he then gives her an eagle's feather, bids her wear it in her hair, and if she is ever in danger he will fly to her rescue at the sight of this pledge of his friendship.

as the play moves on, the audience are gradually borne back to the early days of their fathers, and their dread struggle to

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establish themselves on these western shores. we see the thin and thriving settlements constantly augmenting with reinforcements, and pushing the natives before them. we are taken within the homes of the indians, shown their better qualities, their hopeless efforts, their mixed resolution and misgiving before their coming fate. our sympathies are enlisted, before we know it, with the defeated party against ourselves; and thus the author and actor won their just victory. for the english are made to represent power and fraud, the indians truth and patriotism; and when their fugitive king pauses on a lofty cliff in the light of the setting sun, gazes mournfully on the lost hunting-grounds and desecrated graves of his forefathers, and launches his curse on their destroyers, every heart beats with sorrow for him.

the class of speeches in which the instinctive love of nature that unconsciously saturated the indian soul is expressed, and the closeness of their daily life to the elements of the landscape and the phenomena of the seasons is revealed, were delivered with matchless effect. metamora, poised like the bronze statue of some god of the antique, says, "i have been upon the high mountain-top when the gray mists were beneath my feet, and the great spirit passed by me in wrath. he spoke in anger, and the rocks crumbled beneath the flash of his spear. then i felt proud and smiled. the white man trembles, but metamora is not afraid."

and again: "the war and the chase are the red man's brother and sister. the storm-cloud in its fury frights him not; and when the stream is wild and broken his canoe is like a feather, that cannot drown."

another class of speeches, equally unique in character, and breathing with compressed passion, were those in which the relative positions of the intruding race and the native lords of the soil were described. the style with which these were pronounced made the form of the actor seem a new tenement in which the departed sachem of the pequots lived and spoke again. "your lands?" he exclaims, with sarcastic disdain. "they are mine. climb upon the rock and look to the sunrise and to the sunset,—all that you see is the land of the wampanoags, the land of metamora. i am the white man's friend; but when my friendship is over i will not ask the white man if i have the right to be his

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foe. metamora will love and hate, smoke the pipe of peace or draw the hatchet of battle, as seems good to him. he will not wrong his white brother, but he owns no master save manito, master of heaven."

and at another time: "the pale-faces are around me thicker than the leaves of summer. i chase the hart in the hunting-grounds; he leads me to the white man's village. i drive my canoe into the rivers; they are full of the white man's ships. i visit the graves of my fathers; they are lost in the white man's corn-fields. they come like the waves of the ocean forever rolling upon the shores. surge after surge, they dash upon the beach, and every foam-drop is a white man. they swarm over the land like the doves of winter, and the red men are dropping like withered leaves."

in these passages his declamation seemed to make the whole tragedy of the story of the american indians breathe and swell and tremble.

a wonderful interest, too, was concentrated in the personal traits of metamora himself as an individual; so true to his word, so faithful to his friend, so devoted to his wife and child, so proud of his land and his fathers, so fearless of his foe, so reverential before his god. "to his friend metamora is like the willow,—he bends ever at the breath of those that love him. to others he is an oak. until with your single arm you can rive the strongest tree of the forest from its earth, think not to stir metamora when his heart says no."

in the earliest scene with his wife, when ready to start on a hunt, he lingered, and directed her to take her child from its couch on the earth. he then lifted it in his hands, and stood for several seconds in an attitude so superbly defined in its outlines of strength and grace that several pictures of it were published at the time. he asked, with a look of fondness, suppressing his stern reserve, "dost thou not love this little one, nahmeokee?" "ah, yes!" she replied. he then continued, in a caressing murmur like the runneling music of a brook, "when first his little eyes unclosed, thou saidst that they were like to mine." the expression of human love was so simple and complete, and so exquisitely set in the wild seclusion of nature, suggestive of the self-sufficingness of this little nest of affection embosomed in the

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wood and forgetful of all else in the world, that it made many a soft heart beat fast with an aching wish that stayed long after the scene was gone.

in a later scene he describes to his wife a vision he has had in the night. he relates it in a rich, subdued undertone, waxing intenser, and giving the hearer a mixed feeling of mysterious reverie and prophetic inspiration. "nahmeokee, the power of dreams has been on me, and the shadows of things to be have passed before me. my heart is big with great thoughts. when i sleep, i think the knife is red in my hand and the scalp of the white man is streaming." here he gave an additional height to his figure, a slight downward inclination to his head and eyes, dropped his left arm listlessly, and, while the two halves of his whole form were seen finely distinguished along the median line, with his right hand, extended to its fullest distance straight from the shoulder, grasped his bow, which stood perfectly erect from the ground. it was a posture of beautiful artistic precision and meaning, expressive of reflection with a quality of earnest listening in it, as if waiting for a reply. the words of nahmeokee, not fitting his mood, slightly ruffled his temper, and then, with a crisp tone of voice which in its change of quality and accent was so unexpected that it was like a sudden sweep of the wind that rustles the dry leaves and hums through the wood, he said, "yes, when our fires are no longer red in the high places of our fathers,—when the bones of our kindred make fruitful the fields the stranger has planted amid the ashes of our wigwams,—when we are hunted back like the wounded elk far towards the going down of the sun,—our hatchets broken, our bows unstrung, and our war-whoops hushed,—then will the stranger spare; for we shall be too small for his eye to see!"

the controversy between the natives and the new settlers having reached a perilous height, the latter dispatch a messenger asking metamora to meet them in council. very angry, and deeming all talk useless, he yet concludes to go. unannounced, abruptly, he makes his peremptory appearance amidst them. settling strongly back on his right leg, his left advanced at ease with bent knee, his right side half presented, his face turned squarely towards them, he says, with spartan curtness, and in a manner not insolent, and yet indescribably defiant, "you sent for

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me, and i have come." his action was so wonderfully expressive in speaking these few words that they became a popular phrase, circulating in the mouths of men in all parts of the country.

the same result also followed in another and simpler scene. he had promised to meet the english at a certain time and place. they demanded of him, "will you come?" by mere force of manner he gave an immense impressiveness to the simple reply, "metamora cannot lie." the very boys in the streets were seen trying to imitate his posture and look, swelling their little throats to make the words sound big, as they repeated, "metamora cannot lie."

in an interview with the english, after deadly hostilities have begun to rage, aganemo, a subject of metamora, who, for some supposed wrong, has turned against him, is called in, and bears testimony against his chief and his tribe. metamora cries, "let me see his eyes;" and, going close in front of him, addresses the cowering recreant: "look me in the face, aganemo. thou turnest away. the spirit of a dog has entered thee, and thou crouchest. dost thou come here with a lie in thy heart to witness against me? thine eye cannot rest on thy chieftain. white men, can he speak words of truth who has been false to his nation and false to his friends?" fitz arnold says, "send him hence." metamora interposes with an imperial mien full of dread import, "i will do that," and strikes him dead on the spot, exclaiming, "slave of the whites, follow sassamon,"—sassamon being the name of another traitor whom he had previously slain in the midst of his own braves.

fitz arnold orders his men to seize the high-handed executioner of their witness. towering alone in solitary and solid grandeur, with accents and gestures whose impassioned sincerity painted every thought as a visible reality and made the excited audience lean out of their seats, metamora hurled back his electric defiance:

"come! my knife has drunk the blood of the traitor, but it is not satisfied. men of the pale race, beware! the mighty spirits of the wampanoags are hovering over your heads. they stretch their shadowy arms and call for vengeance. they shall have it. tremble! from east to west, from the south to the north, the tribes have roused from their slumbers. they grasp the

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hatchet. the pale-faces shall wither under their power. white men. metamora is your foe!"

the soldiers level their guns at him. he suddenly seizes a white man and places him before himself. the living shield thus extemporized falls, perforated with bullets. metamora hurls his tomahawk to the floor, where it sticks quivering, while he cries, "thus do i defy your power!" and darts away, leaving them dumb with astonishment.

the pathos with which forrest rendered portions of the play of metamora was one of its most remarkable excellences and one of his most distinctive trophies as a dramatic artist. no theory of the passions or mere mechanical drill in their expression can ever teach a man to be pathetic. only a disagreeable mockery of it can thus come. pathos is the one particular affection that knows no deceit, but comes in truth direct from the soul and goes direct to the soul. it may lie dormant in us, as music lies in the strings of a silent harp, till a touch gives it life. speaking more or less in all, it speaks most in those who cherish it most; and when it speaks it is felt by all,—red man and white man, barbarian and philosopher. the pathos of metamora was not like that of damon when he parted with his family to go to his execution, not like that of brutus when he sentenced his son to death, not like that of virginius when he slew his daughter. it was a pathos without tears or gesture. the indian warrior never weeps. it was almost solely a pathos of the voice, and was as broad and primitive as the unperverted faith and affection of man. the supreme example of this quality in the play was finely set off by the contrast that immediately foreran it, its soft, sad shades following a scene of lurid fury and grandeur.

a peace-runner brings metamora the news that nahmeokee is a captive in the power of his enemies. leaving fifty white men bound as hostages to secure his own safety, he starts alone to deliver her. as he approaches the english camp, he hears nahmeokee shriek. with one bound he bursts in upon them, levels his gun, and thunders,—

"which of you has lived too long? dogs of white men, do you lift your hands against a woman?" "seize him!" they cry, but shrink from his movement. "hah!" he scornfully exclaims, "it is now a warrior who stands before you, the fire-weapon in

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his hands. who, then, shall seize him? go, nahmeokee; i will follow thee." then, reminding them of his hostages, he turns on his heel and departs.

he is next discovered, with a slow and heavy step, approaching his wigwam, where his rescued wife waits to receive him. he has seen that the too unequal struggle of his countrymen is hopeless, and he appears sad and gloomy. telling nahmeokee, who looks broken with grief, that he is weary with the strife of blood, he says, "bring me thy little one, that i may press him to my burning heart to quiet its tumult." without his knowledge, the child had been killed by the white men a few hours previous. the mother goes where the child is lying upon the ground, lifts the skin that covers him, points at him, and drops her head in tears. metamora looks at the child, at the mother, stoops, and, with rapid motions, feels the little face, arms, and legs. suppressing the start of horror and the cry of grief a white man would have given, he sinks his chin slowly upon his breast and heaves a deep sigh, and then utters the simple words, "dead! cold!" in a tone low as if to be heard by himself alone, and sounding like the wail of a sorrow in some far-away world. having lifted the dead child and fondled it in his bosom and laid it tenderly back, he walks slowly to the weeping nahmeokee, places his hand on her shoulder, and says, in a soft voice quivering with the tears not suffered to mount in the eyes, "well, is he not happy? better that he should die by the stranger's hand than live to be his slave. do not bow down thy head. thou wilt see him again in the happy land of the spirits; and he will look smilingly as—as—as i do now." here the quality of smilingness was in the tones of the voice only, while his face wore the impress of intense grief. the voice and face thus contradicting each other presented a pathos so overwhelming that it seemed as if nothing human could surpass it or resist it.

his manner now changes. some great resolution seems to have arisen in him. his words have a tender yet ominous meaning in their inflection as he asks nahmeokee, "do you not fear the power of the white man? he might seize thee and bear thee off to his far country, bind those arms that have so often clasped me, and make thee his slave. we cannot fly: our foes are all about us. we cannot fight, for this [drawing his long

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knife] is the only weapon i have saved unbroken from the strife. it has tasted the white man's blood and reached the cold heart of the traitor. it has been our best friend, and it is now our only treasure." here he drew her still closer, and placed her head on his bosom, and, with the long knife in his hand, pointed upwards, and with an alluring, indescribably sweet and aerial falsetto tone, painted a picture that seemed to take form and color in the very atmosphere. there was a weird dreaminess in his voice and a visionary abstractness in his gaze, as with the words "long path in the thin air," he indicated the heavenward journey of his dead child, that seemed actually to dissolve the whole scene, theatre, actor, spectators, and all, into a passing vapor, an ethereal enchantment.

"i look through the long path in the thin air, and think i see our little one borne to the land of the happy, where the fair hunting-grounds never know snows or storms, and where the immortal brave feast under the eyes of the giver of good. look upward, nahmeokee! see, thy child looks back to thee, and beckons thee to follow." drawing her closer with his left arm, and lowering his right, he whispers, "hark! in the distant wood i faintly hear the tread of the white men. they are upon us! the home of the happy is made ready for thee!" while this picture of fear and hope is vivid before her mind, he strikes the blow, and in an instant she is dead in his arms. he clasps her to his breast, presses his lips on her forehead, and gently places her beside the dead child. he then shudders, and draws forth the knife sheathed in her side, and kisses its blade in a sudden transport, exclaiming, "she knew no bondage to the white men. pure as the snow she lived, free as the air she died!"

at this moment the hills are covered with the white men, pointing their rifles at his heart. "hah!" he cries. their leader shouts, "metamora is our prisoner!" "no," he proudly responds, dilating with the haughtiest port of defiance. "i live, the last of my race, live to defy you still, though numbers and treachery overpower me. come to me, come singly, come all, and this knife, which has drunk the foul blood of your nation, and is now red with the purest of mine, will feel a grasp as strong as when it flashed in the glare of your burning dwellings or was lifted terribly over the fallen in battle."

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the order is given to fire upon him; and he replies, "do so. i am weary of the world; for ye are dwellers in it. i would not turn on my heel to save my life." they shoot, and he staggers, but in his dying agonies launches on them his awful malediction:

"my curses on ye, white men! may the great spirit curse ye when he speaks in his war-voice from the clouds! may his words be like the forked lightnings, to blast and desolate! may the loud winds and the fierce red flames be loosed in vengeance upon ye, tigers! may the angry spirit of the waters in his wrath sweep over your dwellings! may your graves and the graves of your children be in the path where the red man shall tread, and may the wolf and the panther howl over your fleshless bones! i go. my fathers beckon from the green lakes and the broad hills. the great spirit calls me. i go,—but the curses of metamora stay with the white men!"

he crawls painfully to the bodies of his wife and child, and, in a vain effort to kiss them, expires, with his last gasp mixing the words, "i die—my wife, my queen—my nahmeokee!"

spartacus.

f. halpin

edwin forrest as

the gladiator.

"the gladiator," written by robert montgomery bird, was another prize-play, in which forrest acquired a popularity which, if less general, was more intense, than that secured for his metamora. if the admiration and applause given to it were drawn less universally from men and women, from old and young, they were more fervent and sustained, being fed by those elementary instincts which are strongest in the robust multitude. the spartacus of forrest was more abused and satirized by hostile critics than any of his other parts, because it was the most "physical" and "melodramatic" of them all. muscular exertion and ferocious passion were carried to their greatest pitch in it, though neither of these was displayed in a degree beyond sincerity and fitness or the demands of the given situations on the given embodiment of the character. there are actual types of men and actual scenes of life which are transcendently "physical" and "melodramatic." no actor can truly represent such specimens of human nature and such conjunctures of human history without being highly "physical" and profoundly "melodramatic." is it not the office of the player, the very aim of his art, correctly to depict the truth of man

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and life? and, recollecting what sort of a person the veritable thracian gladiator was, and what sort of a part he played, one may well ask how he can be justly impersonated on the stage if not invested with the attributes of brawny muscularity, terrific indignation, stentorian speech, and merciless revenge. forrest was blamed and ridiculed by a coterie because he did exactly what, as an artist cast in such a rôle, he ought to do, and any deviation from which would have been a gross violation of propriety. he simply exhibited tremendous mental and physical realities with tremendous mental and physical realism. what else would the demurrer have?

the fact is, the cant words "physical" and "melodramatic," as demeaningly used in dramatic criticism, express a vulgar prejudice too prevalent among the educated and refined,—a prejudice infinitely more harmful than any related prejudice of the ignorant and coarse. they seem to fancy the body something vile, to be ashamed of, to receive as little attention and be kept as much out of sight as possible. but since god created the body as truly as he did the spirit, and decreed its uses as much as he did those of the spirit, the perfecting and glorifying of the former are just as legitimate as the perfecting and glorifying of the latter. the ecclesiastical interpretation of christianity for these fifteen hundred years is responsible, in common with kindred ascetic superstitions of other and elder religions, for an incalculable amount of disease, deformity, vice, crime, and untimely death. the contempt for bodily power and its material conditions in a superbly-developed and trained physical organism, the foul and dishonoring notion of the superior sanctity of the celibate state, the teaching that chastity is the one thing that allies us to the angels, with which every other sin may be forgiven, without which no other virtue is to be recognized,—these and associated errors—discords, distortions, and inversions of nature—have been prolific sources of evil. they lie at the root of the so common prejudice against a magnificent and glowing condition of the physical organism, a prejudice which feeds the conceit of the votaries of the present mental forcing system, and causes so many dawdling idlers to neglect all use of those vigorous measures of gymnastic hygiene which would raise the power and splendor of body and soul together to their maximum.

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the type of man produced by the athenians in their best age, its unrivalled combination of health and strength, energy and grace, acumen and sensibility, organic harmony of mental peace and vital joy, was very largely the fruit of their unrivalled system of gymnastics regulated by music. free america, with this example and so much subsequent experience, with all the conquests of modern science at her command, should inaugurate a system of popular training which will acknowledge the equal sanctity of body and soul and render them worthy of each other, a union of athletic and æsthetic culture making the body the temporary illuminated temple of its indwelling immortal divinity.

the separating of human nature into opposed parts whose respective highest welfare is incompatible must ever be productive of all kinds of morbidity, monstrosity, and horror, through the final reactions of the violated harmony of truth. leading to the enforced culture of one side, the mental, and the enforced neglect of the other, the material, it is fatal to that rounded wholeness of the entire man which is the synonym of both health and virtue. for the helpless subsidence of the soul in the body is brutality or idiocy; the insurrectionary sway of the body over the soul is insanity; the remorseless subdual of the body by the soul is egotistic asceticism or murderous ferocity; but the parallel development and exaltation of accordant body and soul give us the ideal of health and happiness fulfilled in beauty, or the enthronement of divine order in man. therefore such a stimulating instance of organic glory, extraordinary outward poise and inward passion, as the people, thrilled in their most instinctive depths of enthusiasm, used to shout at when they saw forrest in his early assumptions of the rôle of spartacus, is not to be stigmatized as something offensive, but to be hailed as something admirable.

in those happy and glowing years of his prime and of his fresh celebrity, what a glorious image of unperverted manhood, of personified health and strength and beauty, he presented! what a grand form he had! what a grand face! what a grand voice! and, the living base of all, what a grand blood! the rich flowing seed-bed of his human thunder and lightning. as he stepped upon the stage in his naked fighting-trim, his muscular coating unified all over him and quivering with vital power, his skin polished by exercise and friction to a smooth and marble hardness, conscious

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of his enormous potency, fearless of anything on the earth, proudly aware of the impression he knew his mere appearance, backed by his fame, would make on the audience who impatiently awaited him,—he used to stand and receive the long, tumultuous cheering that greeted him, as immovable as a planted statue of hercules. in the rank and state of his physical organism and its feelings he had the superiority of a god over common men. the spectacle, let it be repeated, was worthy the admiration it won. and had the personal imitation of the care and training he gave himself been but equal to the admiration lavished on their result, the benefit to the american people would have been beyond estimate. but in this, as in the other lessons of the drama, the example was relatively fruitless, because shown to spectators who applaud without copying, seeking entertainment instead of instruction. this, however, is clearly the fault of the people, and not of the stage.

the play of "the gladiator" is founded on that dark and frightful episode in the history of rome, the famous servile war headed by the gladiators under the lead of spartacus. our sympathies are skilfully enlisted on the side of the insurgents, who are goaded to their desperate enterprise by insufferable wrongs and cruelties. it abounds in pictures of insolent tyranny on one side, and with eloquent denunciation and fearless resistance on the other, and the chief character is a powerful presentation of a deep and generous manhood, outraged in every fibre, lashed to fury by his injuries, and, after superhuman efforts of revenge, expiring in monumental despair and appeal to the gods. the horrors of oppression, the irrepressible dignity of human nature, the reckless luxury of the rulers, the suffering of the slaves, the revolting arrogance of despotism, and the burning passion of liberty, are set against one another; and all through it the mighty figure of spartacus is made to fill the central place. it was just the part for a democrat, who, despising what is factitious, gloried in the ineradicable attributes of free manhood; and forrest made the most of it. for instance, it is easy for those who knew him to imagine the energy and relish with which he would utter the following lines when he came to them in his part:

"i thank the gods, i am barbarian;

for i can better teach the grace-begot

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and heaven-supported masters of the earth,

how a mere dweller of a desert rock

can bow their crowned heads to his chariot-wheels.

man is heaven's work, and beggars' brats may herit

a soul to mount them up the steeps of fortune,

with regal necks to be their stepping-blocks."

in the intense sincerity and elaborate as well as spontaneous truth of his performance, it was not a play that the spectators saw, but a history; not a history, but a resurrection. entering in the garb of a slave, bound and whipped, his mighty frame and terrible aspect made the abuse seem more awful. tortured with insulting questions, his proud spirit stung by wrong on wrong, he broke forth in desperation, and carried the passions of the audience by storm, as with clenched hands, and half erect from their seats, while the blood ran quicker through their veins, they saw him rush into combat with his enemies and chase them from the stage. they delighted to see the cruel subduer of the world humbled by her own captive, who held her haughty prætors by the heart and called on thrace, on africa, on the oppressed of all nations, to pour the flood of their united hates on the detested city. they rejoiced to hear him recite with bitter eloquence the story of her degradation, and heap on her with hot scorn the recollection of the time when tiber ran blood and hannibal hung over her like a cloud charged with ruin. every step, every word, vibrated on their feelings, and when he fell their hearts swelled with a pang. for the actor had been lost in the slave, the insurgent, the conqueror, the victim.

his first appearance as a captive in imperial rome was deeply affecting. "is it a thousand leagues to thrace?" he said, with a whispered agony, the deadly lament of hopeless exile. he has been purchased by lentulus, an exhibitor of gladiators, on the strength of the report that he was the most desperate, skilful, and unconquerable fighter in the province. bracchius, another proprietor of gladiators, owns one phasarius, a thracian, who has always been victorious in his combats. phasarius was a younger and favorite brother of spartacus, supposed to have been killed in battle years before, but really taken captive and brought to rome. now bracchius and lentulus propose a combat between their two slaves. spartacus, chained, is ordered in. he asks, "is not this rome, the great city?" bracchius replies,

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"ay, and thou shouldst thank the gods that they have suffered thee to see it. what think'st thou of it?"

"spartacus. that if the romans had not been fiends, rome had never been great. whence came this greatness but from the miseries of subjugated nations? how many myriads of happy people that had not wronged rome, for they knew not rome,—how many myriads of these were slain, like the beasts of the field, that rome might fatten upon their blood, and become great? look ye, roman, there is not a palace upon these hills that cost not the lives of a thousand innocent men; there is no deed of greatness ye can boast, but it was achieved by the ruin of a nation; there is no joy ye can feel, but its ingredients are blood and tears."

lentulus breaks in, "now, marry, villain, thou wert bought not to prate, but to fight."

"spartacus. i will not fight. i will contend with mine enemy, when there is strife between us; and if that enemy be one of these same fiends, a roman, i will give him the advantage of weapon and place; he shall take a helmet and buckler, while i, with my head bare and my breast naked, and nothing in my hand but my shepherd's staff, will beat him to my feet and slay him. but i will not slay a man for the diversion of romans."

his master threatens to have him lashed if he refuses to contend in the arena. the fearful attitude and fixed look with which spartacus received this threat, suggesting that he would strike the speaker dead with a glance, were a masterpiece of expressive art not easily forgotten by any one who saw it. its possessing power seemed to freeze the gazer while he gazed. still refusing to fight, in moody despair he bewails the destruction of his home by the romans, and their murder of his wife and young child. the female slaves of bracchius here pass by, and, to his amazement, among them spartacus sees his lost senona and her boy. after a touching interview of contending joy and grief with them, he agrees to enter the arena, on condition that if he is victorious his reward shall be their liberation.

the next act opens with a view of the great roman amphitheatre, crowded with the people gathered to see those bloody games which were their horrid but favorite amusement. the first adversary brought against spartacus is a gaul. he soon slays

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him, though with great reluctance, and only as moved to it by the prospect of freedom for his wife and child. then they propose as a second champion a renowned thracian. he flings down his sword and refuses to fight with one of his own countrymen. but at last, on learning that liberty is to be had in no other way, he suddenly yields. the thracian is introduced. it is phasarius. a scene of intense pathetic power follows, as little by little the brothers are struck with each other's appearance, suspect, inquire, respond, are satisfied, and rush into a loving embrace. the prætor treats their recognition and their transport of fraternal affection as a trick to escape the combat, and orders them to begin. spartacus proposes to his brother to die sword in hand rather than obey the unnatural command. in reply, phasarius rapidly informs him that he has already organized the elements of a revolt among his comrades, and that it awaits but his signal to break out. crassus angrily calls on his guards to enter the amphitheatre and punish the dilatory combatants. the manner in which spartacus retorted, "let them come in,—we are armed!" never failed to stir the deepest excitement in the theatre, causing the whole assembly to join in enthusiastic applause. port, look, gesture, tone, accent, combined to make it a signal example of the sovereign potency of manner in revealing a master-spirit and swaying subject-spirits.

on the entrance of the guards, phasarius gives a shout, and the confederate gladiators also plunge in, and a general conflict begins. in this scene the acting of forrest absorbed his whole heart. he was so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of it that everything he did was perfectly natural, full of that genuine fire which is so much beyond all exertion by rule. it was universally agreed that more spirited and admirable fighting was hardly to be conceived, the varied postures into which he threw his massive form being worthy to be taken as studies for the sculptor.

the rebellion grows apace in success and numbers. spartacus rescues his wife and child from the roman camp, and seizes the niece of the prætor. phasarius falls in love with this young woman, and demands her of his brother. being refused because she is affianced to a youth in rome, he insists on his demand. in the altercation occurs one of the finest and loftiest passages in the play, and it was rendered with a sublime eloquence:

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"spartacus. come, look me in the face,

and let me see how bad desires have changed thee.

phasarius. i claim the captive.

spar. set thine eye on her:

lo, you! she weeps, and she is fatherless.

thou couldst not harm an orphan? what, i say,

art thou, whom i have carried in my arms

to mountain-tops to worship the great god,

art thou a man to plot a wrong and sorrow

'gainst such as have no father left but him?"

phasarius revolts, and takes off more than half the army. disastrously defeated by crassus, he returns with a broken fragment of his forces, and is generously forgiven and restored to favor by spartacus, who intrusts him with an important separate command, and confides senona and her boy to his keeping, with the solemn charge that he shall avoid all collision with the enemy. phasarius, however, thirsting for roman blood, seeks an engagement, and is totally routed, his force cut in pieces, and the mother and child both slain. the unhappy man, then, mortally wounded, presents himself before his brother, tells his fearful tale, and expires at his feet. in this interview the emotions of anxiety, deprecation, grief, wrath, and horror, were depicted in all their most forcible language in the person of spartacus. one action in particular was effective in the highest degree. phasarius described the crucifixion by the romans of six thousand of their thracian captives. the highway on both sides, he said, was lined with crosses, and on each cross was nailed a gladiator.

"i crept

thro' the trenched army to that road, and saw

the executed multitude uplifted

upon the horrid engines. many lived:

some moaned and writhed in stupid agony;

some howled and prayed for death, and cursed the gods;

some turned to lunatics, and laughed at horror;

and some with fierce and hellish strength had torn

their arms free from the beams, and so had died

grasping headlong the air."

the agitations of the soul of the listener up to this point had been delineated with fearful distinctness. but when told that his wife and child had been killed, his head suddenly fell forward on his breast and rested there, after vibrating four or five times

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in lessening degrees on the pivot of the neck, as if utterly abandoned to itself. it was marvellously expressive of the exhausted state, the woe-begone despair, of one who had received a shock too great to be borne, a shock which, had it been a little severer, would have prostrated his whole figure, but, as it was, simply prostrated his head.

deprived of all his kindred and of all hope, alone on the flinty earth, rage and recklessness now seize the desolate thracian, and he resolves to sacrifice his captive, the niece of the prætor, in retaliation for the slaughter of his own family; but a nobler sentiment restrains him, and he dismisses her to her father. in this passage he displayed the agony of generous grief subduing the desire of vengeance with a power which, as a prominent english critic said, reminded the beholder of the head of laocoön struggling in the folds of the serpent, or of the head of hercules writhing under the torture of the poisoned shirt.

the prætor in return for his daughter sends spartacus an offer of pardon if he will surrender. disdainfully rejecting the overture, he has the horses in his camp slain, and sets everything on the chance of one more battle, but against such odds as he knows can result only in his defeat. with a frenzied thirst for vengeance he fights his way to the presence of the roman general, and, in the very act of striking him down, exhausted from the accumulated wounds received in his passage of blood, grows faint, reels, falls in the exact attitude of the immortal statue of the dying gladiator, and expires.

a most remarkable proof of the histrionic genius of forrest was given in the profoundly discriminated manner with which the same mass and fury of revengeful passion, the same rude breadth and tenderness of affection and pathos, were shown by him in the two characters of metamora and spartacus. in the indian there was a stoical compression of the emotions out of their revealing channels, an organic suppression of starts and surprises and lamentations, a profound impassibility of demeanor, an exterior of slow, stubborn, monotonous self-possession, through which the volcanic ferocity of the interior crept in words of slow lava, or flared as fire through a smouldering heap of cinders. in the thracian there was more variety as well as incomparably more freedom and impulsiveness of expression. the exterior and in

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terior corresponded with each other and mutually reflected instead of contradicting each other. in different exigencies the gladiator exhibited in his whole person, limbs, torso, face, eyes, and voice, the extremes of sullen stolidity, pining sorrow, convulsive grief, ambitious pride, pity, anger, resolution, and despair, each well shaded from the others. he had a wider gamut, as civilization is more comprehensive than barbarism. the movements and expressions of metamora seemed to be instinctive, and originate in the nervous centres of the physique; those of spartacus to be volitional, originating in the cerebral centres. in civilized life the body tends to be the reflex of the brain; in savage life the brain to be the reflex of the body. this historic and physiological truth forrest knew nothing about, but the practical results of the fact he intuitively observed.

the seven characters, now described as fully as the writer can do it with the data at his command, were the favorite ones in which forrest had gained his greenest laurels at the time of his visit to europe. jaffier, octavian, sir edward mortimer, sir giles overreach, iago, and other kindred parts, which he often acted with distinguished ability and acceptance, he liked less and less, and gradually dropped them altogether. in febro, cade, melnotte, and richelieu he had not yet appeared. his richard, macbeth, othello, lear, hamlet, and coriolanus will be more appropriately treated in a later chapter of his life, when he had elaborated his conceptions of them to the highest finish in his power. but his performances at the time now under consideration were, in their spiritual substance, their general treatment and outlines, what they remained to the end. the subsequent changes were merely improvements in details, in gradual climax, in grouping, in symmetry and unity. with his advancing years and experience and study, more and more the parts were made to grow before the audience, so to speak, from their roots upward, gaining strength and expansion as they rose. gusty irregularity, crudity, misproportion, discord, were carefully struck out, and harmony secured by the just blending of light and shade. but from first to last his style was consistent, and, like his personality, knew no revolutions, only development.

in the practice of his profession it was a noble characteristic of

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forrest that he disliked to impersonate essentially bad or ignoble characters. he hated to set forth passions, thoughts, or sentiments meant to be regarded as base and repulsive, unless, indeed, it was to make them odious and hold them up to detestation. into this work he threw himself with a gusto that was extreme. he was but too vehement in the utterance of sarcastic denunciations of every form of meanness or cruelty, his relish of the excoriation being often too keen, his inflection of tone too widely sweeping, and his emphasis too prolonged for the measure of any average sympathy. all was sincere with him in it, but his expression was pitched in the scale of reality, while the appreciation of the listeners was only pitched in the calmer scale of ideality.

he loved to stand out in some commanding form of virtue, heroism, or struggle, battling with trials that would appall common souls, setting a great example, and evoking enthusiasm. this was his glory. the zeal with which he ever regarded this phase of his profession, the delight with which he revelled in the contemplation of ideal strength, fortitude, courage, devotion, was a grand attribute of his soul. accordingly, all his favorite parts were expressions of a high-souled manhood, reverential towards god, truth, and justice, and fearing nothing; a proud integrity and hardiness competent to every emergency of life and death; an unbending will, based on right and entwined with the central virtues of honor, friendship, domestic love, and patriotic ardor. and surely these are the qualities best deserving universal respect, the democratic ideals most wholesome to be cultivated. this is what he most innately loved and stood on the stage to represent. he did it with immense earnestness and immense individuality. he did it also with a conscientious devotion to his chosen art and profession that never faltered. in none of his performances was there ever anything in the least degree savoring of pruriency or indelicacy. never, after his boyhood was past, could he be induced to appear in any trivial or unmeaning role, destitute of moral purpose and dignity. with not one of those many innovations which have detracted so much from the rank and purity of the drama was his name ever associated. he was ever strongly averse in his own person to touching in any way any play which was not enriched and elevated by some imaginative romantic or heroic creation. and, with a world

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-wide removal from the so common frivolity and carelessness of his associates on the boards, he approached every one of his performances with a studious sobriety, and went through it with an undeniable dignity and earnestness, which should have lifted him beyond the reach of ridicule, whatever were the faults an honorable criticism might affirm.

the substance of the honest objections made to his acting may be designated as ascribing to it two faults, an excess and a defect. the excess was too much display of physical and spiritual force in the expression of contemptuous or revengeful and destructive passion. there was a basis for this charge, though the accusation was grossly exaggerated. the muscular and passional strength and intensity of forrest, both by constitution and by culture, were so much beyond those of ordinary men that a manifestation of them which was entirely natural and within the bounds to him often seemed to them a huge extravagance, a wilful overdoing for the sake of making a sensation. in him it was perfectly genuine and not immoderate by the tests of nature, while to them it appeared far to transgress the modest limits of truth. of course such explosions repelled and pained, sometimes revolted, the sensibilities of the delicate and fastidious, while the more ungirdled and terrific they were, so much the greater was the pleased and wondering approval of those whose sympathies were stormed and self-surrendered. such was the histrionic fault of excess in forrest, if it may not rather be called the fault of those whose natures were keyed so much below his that they could not come into tune with him.

the defect corresponding to this excess was lack of souplesse, physical and spiritual mobility. he was unquestionably deficient, when tried by a severe standard, in bright, alert, expectant, rich freedom of play in nerves and faculties. his disposition was comparatively obstinate in its pertinacity, and his body adhesive in its heaviness. this gave him the ponderous weight of unity, the antique port of the gods, but it robbed him in a degree of that supreme grace which is the ability to compass the largest effects of impression with the smallest expenditure of energy. it cannot be denied that he needed exactly what garrick had in such perfection, namely, that detached personality, that quicksilver liberty and rapidity of motion, which made the great eng

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lish actor such a memorable paragon of variety and charm. yet, when these abatements are all allowed, enough remains amply to justify his large historic claim in the honest massiveness and glow of his delineations, set off alike by the imposing physique fit to take the club and pose for a farnesian hercules, by a studious and manly art unmarred with any insincere trickery, and by a powerful mellow voice of vast compass and flexible intonation, whose declamation, modelled on nature, and without theatrical affectation, ever did full justice to noble thoughts and beautiful words.

cibber said, in allusion to betterton, "pity it is that the momentary beauties from an harmonious elocution cannot be their own record, that the animated graces of the player can live no longer than the instant breath and motion that presents them, or at best but faintly glimmer through the memory or imperfect attestation of a few surviving spectators." could the author of this biography paint in their true forms and colors and with full completeness the once vivid and vigorous achievements of the buried master, had he with sufficient knowledge and memory command of some notation whereby he could record every light and shade of each great rôle so that they might be revived from the dead symbols in all the lustre of their original reality, even as a musician translates from the dormant score into living music an overture of mozart or a symphony of beethoven, then were there a deathless forrest breathing in these pages who should stir the souls of generations of readers to rise and mutiny against the depreciating estimates of his forgotten foes and the encroachments of literary oblivion. but, alas! to such a task the pen that essays the tribute is unequal, and the writer must be content with the pale presentments he can but imperfectly produce, sighing to think how true is the refrain of regret taken up in every age by those who have mourned a departed actor, and never better worded, perhaps, than in the famous lines by garrick:

"the painter dead, yet still he charms the eye;

while taste survives, his fame can never die.

but he who struts his hour upon the stage

can scarce extend his fame for half an age.

nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,—

the art and artist share one common grave."