"The burst of passionate fury with which he assailed the affrighted freedman, in the former scene, was awfully fearful; and his expression of wild, frantic, overwhelming joy when he beholds Pythias in safety, and can only manifest his feelings by hysteric laughter, was perfectly true to nature. Mr. Forrest's performance was most amply and justly applauded." The actor had every reason to feel well pleased with the results of his bold undertaking. His emotions are expressed in a letter written to his mother under date of Liverpool, January 2d, 1837, in the course of which he says,-- "Before this you have doubtless heard of my great triumphs in Drury Lane Theatre; though I must confess I did not think they treated the Gladiator and my friend Dr. Bird fairly. Yet, as far as regards myself, I never have been more successful, even in my own dear land. In the characters of Shakspeare alone would they hear me; and night after night in overwhelming crowds they came, and showered their hearty applause on my efforts. This, my dear mother, is a triumphant refutation of those prejudiced opinions so often repeated of me in America by a few ignorant scribblers, who but for the actors would never have understood one line of the immortal bard." But a fuller statement of his impressions in London, with interesting glimpses of his social life there, is contained in a letter to Leggett: "... My success in England has been very great. While the people evinced no great admiration of the Gladiator, they came in crowds to witness my personation of Othello, Lear, and Macbeth. I commenced my engagement on the 17th of October at 'Old Drury,' and terminated it on the 19th of December, having acted in all thirty-two nights, and represented those three characters of Shakspeare twenty-four out of the thirty-two, namely, Othello nine times, Macbeth seven, and King Lear eight,--this last having been repeated oftener by me than by any other actor on the London boards in the same space of time, except Kean alone. This approbation of my Shakspeare parts gives me peculiar pleasure, as it refutes the opinions very confidently expressed by a certain _clique_ at home that I would fail in those characters before a London audience.