Year: 1872

Tho Death or Edwin Forrest.


In the death of Edwin Forrest the Ameri-
can stage has lost its highest ornament and
dramatic art its proudest interpreter For
fifty years he had made the mimic life more
real and more tragic even than his own. He
was one of the few men who could say when
his days were in tho sere and yellow leaf


Golden opinions from all sorts OF people.


Which should be worn now IN their newest gloss,


Not cast aside SO soon


for though the world had known him for half
century he was not old, according to the
measure Of mems years. and he had only
begun to outlive his faults. His triumphs
were great but his life was not happy in its
prime The plaudits of the world could not
recompense him for what he suffered, but the
earth which fills his grave will hide all except
the greatness and sublimity of his genius. He
was q man such as we shall not see again in
this generation, and, among Shakspeare's
interpreters, his name will ever be associated
with that Of Edmund Kean. The two actors
were so great and SO wonderfully like in their
greatness that it now seems impossible to de-
eide which was greatest. And it is creditable
to both that each recognized the genius
of the other. When Forrest. q young
man unknown to fame, and without
any great master to teach him his art,
appeared at Charleston to play the parts he
had learned to act in the rude theatres of the
West and South, Kean met him and heralded
his talents in the cities where he was soon to
appear and ask for popular favor Soon he
came to New York, and he came to conquer,
not for an hour, but for years of enduring
fame. Yet when he first appeared behind the
footlights of the Bowery Theatre six and forty
years ago he showed upon what frail threads
the success of lifetime often hangs In the
first scenes of ''Othello'' on that great night
Of his trial and his triumph he was tame and
spiritless as the poor actor who struts and
frets his hour upon the stage but his genius
| at last asserted itself, and he electrified his
audience by the intensity of his passion and his
| jealousy. 1t was, as we often say of perform
ances less noble, thing to be remembered,
! and it is still treasured as one OF the green
| and fragrant memories of the stage Great
was the career which followed it, and lasting
as it was great. Every city in the Union
courted Forrest to come and como again.
London saw him with wonder, and when
seeking to condemn approved him in the end.
1t was easy enough to put poor DR.. Bird s
play out Of sight, but not SO easy to disown
the spell of Forests Moor. When London
had seen his Othello it was easy to say his
old-time power had disappeared but loyal
England could not but sympathize with the
forlorn, forsaken Lear, into whom his
genius infused new life. He personated kings
and heroes moved by strong, deep PASSIONS
and made them grand as Shakespeare made
them. The sovereigns of the time were mere
puppets compared with the puppet sovereigns
Of his mighty brain. His heroes lived. and
breathed while the living kings and warriors
seemed as dead. In one respect the Astor
place riot is creditable to him. There are few
men whose intellectual power, welded only
in the domain of art, could induce the multi
tude to say, at the risk of life, and, as it
turned out, in the very jaws of death, that
another whom it was conceived had done him
wrong should not speak in the city where he
had spoken SO fitly and so well. 1t was in
this sense a tribute to his art as hotly urged
as he had played his parts; but it was an
event which never should have occurred. We
can best regret it by forgetting it. In the
future Edwin Forrest will be associated only
with his art, as Kean and Kemble now live
only in the glory of their artistic achieve
ments Even the carping criticism that fol-
lowed him to the end will not long be remem-
bered now that he is gone. If Hazlitt had
lived in his day to tell the story Of his passion
and Lamb to portray his portrayals of ten
derness, posterity might know him better;
but even these could not have made his fame
more lasting or compelled his genius to be
treated more reverently in the generations
which are to come after him.