A little over four months after his brilliant success in Boston, he appeared, under circumstances less auspicious, in the capital of Rhode Island, and had a short but ominous illness, which he described in a letter to his mother. "PROVIDENCE, 20th June, 1827. "DEAR MOTHER,--I performed for the first time under the immediate patronage of Providence on Friday evening last. And, to say truth, it was but to 'a beggarly account of empty boxes,'--a thing very strange to me nowadays. The theatre is an old barn of a place, and reminds me very much of the itinerant expeditions of my early days in Ohio and Kentucky, days which often come back to my thought and twinge me with their bitter-sweet memories. This edifice, however, is rendered sacred in my eyes by the remembrance that George Frederick Cooke once performed in it to enraptured audiences. The company is wretched, but to-morrow it is to receive new acquisitions, and fair hopes are aroused that in the event the enterprise will prove profitable. "Last Monday evening, while enacting the character of Virginius, in one of the most impassioned scenes, the blood rushed with such violence into my head that it was with the utmost difficulty I could complete the performance. Never in the course of my life have I experienced such agony and horror as in that moment. I returned to my lodgings and vainly commended myself to sleep. It was not till I had had administered to me an anodyne powerful enough to have made me at any other time sleep the sleep of death that I could secure repose. The next morning I awoke unrefreshed and with little abatement of the pain. A physician was sent for, who cupped me on the back of the neck, producing instant relief. I have since been rapidly recovering, and shall, no doubt, be perfectly competent to the intended performance of Jaffier to-morrow night. "I hope to pass a day or two with you about the 4th of July. Tell the girls I shall bring them some presents. By the time I reach New York you shall hear further about the bust for which I have given sittings to a sculptor at the request of a group of my friends. "Your affectionate son, "EDWIN FORREST."