It is a satisfaction to put on record this judgment of one artist concerning another whose merit transcends even his high reputation,— especially as a coolness separated the two men, Mr. Davenport having through a misapprehension of the fact of the publication of Jack Cade by Judge Conrad inferred that it had thus in some sense become the property of the public, and produced the play on the stage, while Forrest held it to be his own private property. He had been so annoyed by such proceedings on the part of other actors before, provoking him into angry suits at law, that his temper was sore. He wrote sharply to Mr. Davenport, who, even if he had made a mistake, had done no conscious wrong and meant no offence, and who replied in a calmer tone and with better taste. Here the matter closed, but left an alienation,—for Forrest when irritated was relentlessly tenacious of his point. Mr. Davenport is a man of gentle and generous character, respected and beloved by all his companions. He is also in all parts of his profession a highly accomplished artist and critic. Accordingly, when he expresses the conviction, as he repeatedly has both before and since the decease of his former friend and great compeer, that Forrest was beyond comparison the most original and the greatest actor America has produced, his words are weighty, and their spirit honors the speaker as much as it does the subject. In a letter written to Forrest twenty-five years earlier, under date of October 10th, 1847, Mr. Davenport had said, “I have not words to express the gratification and pleasure I felt in witnessing your masterly performance. It was probably the last time I shall have an opportunity to see you for years; but I assure you, however long it may be, the remembrance will always live in my mind as vividly as now.”