Nothing could have been more fortunate for Forrest, just at that time, than to watch such an actor in his greatest parts and come into confidential contact with him. In playing Iago to his Othello, Titus to his Brutus, Richmond to his Richard, the best chance was afforded for this. About noon of the day they were to act together, as Kean did not come to the rehearsal, Forrest called at his hotel and asked to see him. He told the messenger to say to Mr. Kean that the young man who was to play Iago wished a brief interview with him, to receive any directions he might like to give for the performance in the evening. "Show him up," said the actor, graciously. As Forrest entered, with a beating heart, Kean rose and welcomed him with great kindness of manner. In answer to a question as to the business of the play, he said, "My boy, I do not care how you come on or go off, if while we are on the stage you always keep in front of me and let not your attention wander from me." He had not yet breakfasted, late as it was, but was in a loose dressing-gown, with the marks of excessive indulgence in dissipation and sleepless hours too plainly revealed in his whole appearance. A rosewood piano was covered with spilth and sticky rings from the glasses used in the debauch of the night. "Have you ever heard me sing?" asked Kean. "Oh, yes, in Tom Tug the Waterman." "Did you see my Tom Tug?" responded the actor, in a pleased tone of caressing eagerness. "I learned those songs purely by imitation of my old friend Incledon; and I approached him so closely that it was said no one could tell the singing of one of us from that of the other. But now you shall hear me sing my favorite piece." He sat down at the piano, struck a few notes, and sang the well-known song of Moore, "Farewell, but whenever you welcome the hour." His face was very pale, and wore an expression of unutterable pathos and melancholy; his hair was floating in confused masses, and his eyes looked like two great inland seas. Both he and his auditor wept as he sang with matchless depth of feeling and a most mournful sweetness,-- "Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy, Which come in the night-time of sorrow and care And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories filled! Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled,-- You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still." While he thus sang, he was, to the fancy of his moved and admiring listener, himself the vase broken and ruined, and his genius, still blooming over the ruins of the man, distilled its holy perfume around him.