The animus of such writing is so obvious to every person of insight that it falls short of its mark, and does no injury to the artist ridiculed. The writer shows himself, as one of his contemporaries said, not a critic, but a caviller,--a gad-fly of the drama. Among the squibs that flew on all sides among the partisans, abounding in phrases like "the icy stilts and bombastic pomposity of Vandenhoff," "the stiff and disagreeable mannerism of Macready," "the affected, half-convulsive croaking of Charles Kean," "the awkward ignorance and brutality of Forrest," the American actor was treated, on the whole, as well as the English ones. A gentleman who had a private box in Drury Lane lent it to a friend to see Forrest in Othello. But it was one of his off-nights, in which Booth was substituted as Richard. The next morning these lines appeared in a public print, as full of injustice as such things usually are: "Of Shakspeare in _barns_ we have heard; Yet who has the patience, forsooth, To witness King Richard the Third, Enacted to-night in a--BOOTH? The order to you I have brought, Not liking the Manager's trick; For instead of the FORREST I sought, He now only offers a _stick_." The impression he made, however, his great and unquestionable success, are best shown by certain salient facts with which the dramatic critics, prejudiced or unprejudiced, had nothing to do: the brilliant public banquet given in his honor by the Garrick Club, with Thomas Noon Talfourd in the chair; the exhibition, at the Somerset House, of his full-length portrait as Macbeth in the dagger-scene; and the numerous valuable presents made to him by various eminent men, including a superb original oil-portrait of Garrick;--these tell their own story. At the close of his first engagement a testimonial was given him by his fellow-actors, every one of them spontaneously joining in the contribution. It was, as the "Morning Herald" described it, "a splendid snuff-box of tortoise-shell, lined and mounted with gold, with a mosaic lid, and the inscription,-- "To Edwin Forrest, Esq., the American tragedian, from the performers of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in testimony of their admiration of his talent as an actor, and their respect for him as a man. 'His worth is warrant for his welcome hither.'--SHAKSPEARE."