For forty years James Oakes had been the sworn bosom friend of Edwin Forrest. He regarded him with an admiration and love romantic if not idolatrous. He had, as he said, known him as youth, as man, in all hours, all fortunes; had summered him and wintered him, and for nigh half a century held him locked in the core of his heart, which he opened every day to look in on him there. He resembled him in physical development, in bearing, in unconscious tricks of manner, in tastes and habits. Indeed, so marked were the likeness and assimilation, despite many important differences, that scores of times the sturdy merchant was taken for the tragedian, and their photographs were as often identified with each other. No one could long be in cordial relations with Oakes and not frequently hear him allude to his distinguished friend and relate anecdotes of him. Besides, I had myself recollections of Forrest warmly attracting me to him. He was one of the first actors I had ever seen on the stage; the very first who had ever electrified and spell-bound me. When a boy of ten years I had seen him in the old National Theatre in Boston in the characters of Rolla, Metamora, and Macbeth. The heroic traits and pomp of the parts, the impassioned energy and vividness of his delineations, the bell, drum, and trumpet qualities of his amazing voice, had thrilled me with emotions never afterwards forgotten. I had also, in later years, often seen him in his best casts. Accordingly, when, on occasion of a visit of Forrest to his friend in Boston in the early autumn of 1868, the offer of a personal interview was given me, I accepted it with alacrity. There were three of us, and we sat together for hours that flew unmarked. It was a charmed occasion. There was no jar or hindrance, and he without restraint unpacked his soul of its treasures of a lifetime. The great range of experience from which he drew pictures and narratives with a skill so dramatic, the rare ease and force of his conversation, the deep vein of sadness obviously left by his trials, the bright humor with which he so naturally relieved this gloom and vented his heart, the winning confidence and gentleness with which he treated me, no touch or glimpse of anything coarse or imperious perceptible in that genial season,--all drew me to him with unresisted attraction. I seemed to recognize in him the unquestionable signals of an honest and powerful nature, magnanimous, proud, tender, equally intellectual and impassioned, harshly tried by the world yet reaping richly from it, capable of eloquent thoughts and great acts, not less fond and true in friendship than tenacious in enmity, always self-reliant, living from impulses within, and not, like so many persons, on tradition and conventionality.